| Document | Document Title |
|---|---|
| US09997700B2 |
Deterministic seeding of switching filament in oxide-based memristive devices
A method for manufacturing an RRAM cell includes providing a metal-insulator-metal stack and exposing a subsection of a MIM stack to particle bombardment and/or radiation. Exposing a subsection of the MIM stack to particle bombardment and/or radiation forms localized defects in the functional layer of the MIM stack, thereby reducing the required forming voltage of the RRAM cell and further providing precise control over the location of a conductive filament created in the MIM stack during forming of the device. |
| US09997699B2 |
Semiconductor device having magnetic tunnel junction structure and method of fabricating the same
A semiconductor device and a method of forming the semiconductor device are disclosed. The semiconductor device includes a lower electrode and a magnetic tunnel junction structure disposed on the lower electrode. The magnetic tunnel junction structure includes a seed pattern disposed on the lower electrode. The seed pattern includes an amorphous seed layer and an oxidized seed layer disposed on a surface of the amorphous seed layer. The seed pattern may prevent the lattice structure of the lower electrode from adversely affecting the lattice structure of a pinned magnetic layer of the magnetic tunnel junction structure. |
| US09997695B2 |
Methods to utilize piezoelectric materials as gate dielectric in high frequency RBTs in an IC device
Methods to utilize piezoelectric materials as a gate dielectric in RBTs in an IC device to generate and sense higher frequency signals with high Qs and resulting devices are disclosed. Embodiments include forming, on an upper surface of a semiconductor layer, RBTs comprising even multiples of sensing RBTs and driving RBTs, each RBT including a piezoelectric gate dielectric layer, a gate, and a dielectric spacer on opposite sides of the piezoelectric gate dielectric layer and gate, wherein at least one pair of sensing RBTs is directly between two groups of driving RBTs; forming metal layers, separated by interlayer dielectric layers, above the RBTs; and forming vias through a dielectric layer above the RBTs connecting the RBTs to a metal layer. |
| US09997689B2 |
Chip reducing thermal stress of current path thereon
A chip reducing thermal stress of current path thereon, including: a substrate having at least one nanowires zone formed on a surface thereof; and at least one current path formed within the at least one nanowires zone on the surface of the substrate, wherein, the at least one nanowires zone has a function of reducing a thermal stress of the at least one current path. |
| US09997688B2 |
Display apparatus and manufacturing method thereof
A display apparatus and a method of manufacturing the same includes a plurality of light emitting diode modules each including a plurality of light emitting diodes regularly arranged therein, and a substrate including a drive unit driving the plurality of light emitting diodes. The substrate is coupled to the plurality of light emitting diode modules such that they oppose each other; and, the drive unit is electrically connected to the plurality of light emitting diodes. |
| US09997686B2 |
Islanded carrier for light emitting device
A low-cost conductive carrier element provides structural support to a light emitting device (LED) die, as well as electrical and thermal coupling to the LED die. A lead-frame is provided that includes at least one carrier element, the carrier element being partitioned to form distinguishable conductive regions to which the LED die is attached. When the carrier element is separated from the frame, the conductive regions are electrically isolated from each other. A dielectric may be placed between the conductive regions of the carrier element. |
| US09997678B2 |
Light-emitting device, method for designing light-emitting device, method for driving light-emitting device, illumination method, and method for manufacturing light-emitting device
An object of the present invention is to provide a light-emitting device that can implement a natural, vivid, highly visible and comfortable appearance of colors and appearance of objects as if the objects are seen outdoors, and to provide a light-emitting device that can change the appearance of colors of the illuminated objects so as to satisfy the requirements for various illuminations, and a method for designing thereof. Another object of the present invention is to improve the appearance of colors of a light-emitting device which currently exists or is in use, and which includes a semiconductor light-emitting device of which appearance of colors is not very good. Moreover, another object of the present invention is to provide a method for driving the light-emitting device, an illumination method by the device, and a method for manufacturing the light-emitting device.These objects are achieved by the light-emitting device that incorporates light-emitting elements and satisfies predetermined requirements, in which ϕSSL(λ) emitted from the light-emitting device satisfies a predetermined condition. |
| US09997671B2 |
Composite substrate, semiconductor chip having a composite substrate and method for producing composite substrates and semiconductor chips
A composite substrate has a carrier and a utility layer. The utility layer is attached to the carrier by means of a dielectric bonding layer and the carrier contains a radiation conversion material. Other embodiments relate to a semiconductor chip having such a composite substrate, a method for producing a composite substrate and a method for producing a semiconductor chip with a composite substrate. |
| US09997670B2 |
Semiconductor light emitting device package
A semiconductor light emitting device package includes a light emitting structure having a first conductive semiconductor layer, an active layer, a second conductive semiconductor layer, a first surface, and a second surface, a first electrode and a second electrode disposed on the second surface of the light emitting structure; an insulating layer, a first metal pad and a second metal pad disposed on the insulating layer, and each having a surface with a first fine uneven pattern so as to have a first surface roughness, a first bonding pad and a second bonding pad disposed on the first metal pad and the second metal pad, respectively, and each having a surface with a second fine uneven pattern so as to have a second surface roughness, and an encapsulant encapsulating the first bonding pad, the second bonding pad, the first metal pad, and the second metal pad. |
| US09997660B2 |
Light blocking sheet, imaging lens module and electronic apparatus
A light blocking sheet includes a first outer layer, a second outer layer, an inner substrate layer and a central axis. The first outer layer includes a first opening. The second outer layer includes a second opening. The inner substrate layer is disposed between the first outer layer and the second outer layer. The inner substrate layer connects the first outer layer to the second outer layer, and the inner substrate layer includes a substrate opening. The central axis is coaxial with the first opening, the second opening and the substrate opening. |
| US09997658B2 |
Photovoltaic cell module
A photovoltaic cell module includes: a transparent upper cover plate, a first polyolefin encapsulation layer, a cell group layer, a second polyolefin encapsulation layer, and a backplane that are sequentially disposed in a laminated manner, where outer edges of the transparent upper cover plate and the backplane exceed outer edges of the first polyolefin encapsulation layer, the cell group layer, and the second polyolefin encapsulation layer, an end part sealing block is further disposed between the transparent upper cover plate and the backplane, and the end part sealing block is located at peripheries of the first polyolefin encapsulation layer, the cell group layer, and the second polyolefin encapsulation layer. |
| US09997654B2 |
Solar cell receiver
A solar cell receiver is provided that includes a semiconductor element that has a front face, a solar cell provided on the front face, a rear face, multiple lateral surfaces and two electric connectors; a carrier for receiving the semiconductor element, the rear face of the element being fixed to the carrier; and an optical element for concentrating the light onto the rear face of the semiconductor element. The optical element has an underside which partially faces the upper side of the semiconductor element, the underside of the optical element has a first shaped section with a first surface that lies on the front face of the semiconductor element and a second surface that lies on the carrier. The shaped section is designed as a cavity or groove. |
| US09997649B2 |
Electrode composition, electrode manufactured using the same, and solar cell
An electrode composition, an electrode, and a solar cell, the composition including a conductive powder; glass frit; an organic binder; and a solvent, wherein the organic binder is a compound that includes a moiety represented by Chemical Formula 1: |
| US09997640B2 |
Dual channel memory
Technologies are generally described related to a dual channel memory device, system and method of manufacture. Various described devices include utilization of both a front channel and a back channel through a substrate formed underneath a dual gate structure of a semiconductor device. Using two pairs of contacts on opposing sides of the gate structure, where the contact pairs are formed on differently doped layers of the semiconductor device, multiple bits may be stored in the semiconductor device acting as a single memory cell. Memorization may be realized by storing different amount or types of charges on the floating gate, where the charges may impact a conduction status of the channels of the device. By detecting the conduction status of the channels, such as open circuit, close circuit, or high resistance, low resistance, data stored on the device (“0” or “1”) may be detected. |
| US09997637B2 |
Semiconductor device
The semiconductor device includes a first transistor provided in a driver circuit portion and a second transistor provided in a pixel portion; the first transistor and the second transistor have different structures. In an oxide semiconductor film of each of the transistors, an impurity element is contained in regions which do not overlap with a gate electrode. The regions of the oxide semiconductor film which contain the impurity element function as low-resistance regions. Furthermore, the regions of the oxide semiconductor film which contain the impurity element are in contact with a film containing hydrogen. Furthermore, the first transistor provided in the driver circuit portion may include the oxide semiconductor film in which a first film and a second film are stacked, and the second transistor provided in the pixel portion may include the oxide semiconductor film which differs from the first film in the atomic ratio of metal elements. |
| US09997632B2 |
Fin-type field effect transistor device and manufacturing method thereof
A fin-type field effect transistor device including a substrate, at least one gate stack structure, spacers and source and drain regions is described. The gate stack structure is disposed on the substrate and the spacers are disposed on sidewalls of the gate stack structure. The source and drain regions are disposed in the substrate and located at opposite sides of the gate stack structures. A dielectric layer having contact openings is disposed over the substrate and covers the gate stack structures. Metal connectors are disposed within the contact openings and connected to the source and drain regions, and adhesion layers are sandwiched between the contact openings and the metal connectors located within the contact openings. |
| US09997631B2 |
Methods for reducing contact resistance in semiconductors manufacturing process
A method of forming a semiconductor device includes forming a fin on a substrate and forming a source/drain region on the fin. The method further includes forming a doped metal silicide layer on the source/drain region and forming a super-saturated doped interface between the doped metal silicide and the source/drain region. An example benefit includes reduction of contact resistance between metal silicide layers and source/drain regions. |
| US09997629B2 |
FinFET with high mobility and strain channel
An integrated circuit device includes a fin having a gate area beneath a gate electrode structure, a source/drain region disposed beyond ends of the fin, and a first conformal layer formed around an embedded portion of the source/drain region. A vertical sidewall of the first conformal layer is oriented parallel to the gate area. |
| US09997628B1 |
Semiconductor device and method of fabricating thereof
The present disclosure provides a semiconductor device and a method of fabricating the semiconductor device. In some embodiments, the semiconductor device includes a substrate having a well region, a first source/drain region, a second source/drain region, a buried channel and a gate structure. The first source/drain region is located within the well region. The gate structure includes a co-doped gate including polysilicon and having a first concentration of a n-type impurity and a second concentration of a p-type impurity, in which the n-type impurity and the p-type impurity are mixed and distributed. |
| US09997625B2 |
Semiconductor device and method for manufacturing the same
A semiconductor device includes: a body region of a second conductivity type formed in a semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type in a semiconductor substrate; a gate electrode facing the body region via a gate insulating film; a source region of the first conductivity type formed in the body region, on a first side of the gate electrode; a drain region of the first conductivity type formed in the semiconductor substrate such that a field oxide film is disposed between the drain region and a second side of the gate electrode; and an impurity diffusion region of the first conductivity type having, at least in a partial region thereof between the drain region and the body region, an impurity concentration distribution in which a concentration of impurities becomes higher in accordance with a depth from a main face of the semiconductor substrate. |
| US09997622B2 |
IE type trench gate IGBT
In a method of further enhancing the performance of a narrow active cell IE type trench gate IGBT having the width of active cells narrower than that of inactive cells, it is effective to shrink the cells so that the IE effects are enhanced. However, when the cells are shrunk simply, the switching speed is reduced due to increased gate capacitance. A cell formation area of the IE type trench gate IGBT is basically composed of first linear unit cell areas having linear active cell areas, second linear unit cell areas having linear hole collector areas and linear inactive cell areas disposed therebetween. |
| US09997617B2 |
Metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) isolation schemes with continuous active areas separated by dummy gates and related methods
Embodiments disclosed in the detailed description include metal oxide semiconductor (MOS) isolation schemes with continuous active areas separated by dummy gates. A MOS device includes an active area formed from a material with a work function that is described as either an n-metal or a p-metal. Active components are formed on this active area using materials having a similar work function. Isolation is effectuated by positioning a dummy gate between the active components. The dummy gate is made from a material having an opposite work function relative to the material of the active area. For example, if the active area was a p-metal material, the dummy gate would be made from an n-metal, and vice versa. |
| US09997615B2 |
Method for forming semiconductor structure with epitaxial growth structure
Methods for forming semiconductor structures are provided. The method for manufacturing a semiconductor structure includes forming a hard mask structure over a substrate and etching the substrate through an opening of the hard mask structure to form a trench. The method for manufacturing a semiconductor structure further includes removing a portion of the hard mask structure to enlarge the opening and forming an epitaxial-growth structure in the trench and the opening. |
| US09997614B2 |
Lateral transistors and methods with low-voltage-drop shunt to body diode
Methods and systems for power semiconductor devices integrating multiple quasi-vertical transistors on a single chip. Multiple power transistors (or active regions) are paralleled, but one transistor has a lower threshold voltage. This reduces the voltage drop when the transistor is forward-biased. In an alternative embodiment, the power device with lower threshold voltage is simply connected as a depletion diode, to thereby shunt the body diodes of the active transistors, without affecting turn-on and ON-state behavior. |
| US09997613B2 |
Integrated etch stop for capped gate and method for manufacturing the same
A semiconductor device includes a plurality of gate stacks spaced apart from each other on a substrate, an etch stop layer formed on an upper surface of each gate stack, a dielectric cap layer formed on each etch stop layer, a plurality of source/drain regions formed on the substrate between respective pairs of adjacent gate stacks, and a plurality of contacts respectively corresponding to each source/drain region, wherein the contacts are separated from the gate structures and contact their corresponding source/drain regions. |
| US09997612B2 |
Compound semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same
A compound semiconductor device includes: a semiconductor substrate; a channel layer over the semiconductor substrate; a carrier supply layer over the channel layer; and a gate electrode, a source electrode and a drain electrode above the carrier supply layer. The semiconductor substrate includes an impurity-containing region containing an impurity, the impurity forms a level lower than a lower edge of a conduction band of silicon by 0.25 eV or more, the impurity forms the level higher than an upper edge of a valence band of silicon. |
| US09997611B2 |
Graphene wiring structure and method for manufacturing graphene wiring structure
A graphene wiring structure of an embodiment has a multilayered graphene having a plurality of planar graphene sheets laminated, and a first interlayer substance being a metal oxyhalide between the plurality of planar graphene sheets. |
| US09997610B2 |
Gate stack formed with interrupted deposition processes and laser annealing
Semiconductor structures and methods of fabricating the same using interrupted deposition processes and multiple laser anneals are provided. The structure includes a high-k gate stack with a high-k bilayer or nanolaminate where a bottom portion of the bilayer is crystallized while a top portion of the bilayer is amorphous. |
| US09997607B2 |
Mirrored contact CMOS with self-aligned source, drain, and back-gate
A semiconductor device and method of forming a semiconductor device including an inverted field effect transistor having metal filled front-side source and drain that is self-aligned and in direct contact with a metal filled back-side source and drain, wherein the device includes a metal backgate. |
| US09997606B2 |
Fully depleted SOI device for reducing parasitic back gate capacitance
A method is presented for forming a semiconductor structure. The method includes forming a bilayer buried insulator over a substrate, forming an extremely thin silicon-on-insulator (ETSOI) over the bilayer buried insulator, forming a dummy gate, and forming a source/drain next to the dummy gate, the source/drain defining a raised source/drain region. The method further includes depositing a dielectric material over the raised source/drain regions, removing the dummy gate to define a recess, implanting a species within a first layer of the bilayer buried insulator, and depositing a gate dielectric and a conducting material within the recess. The method further includes removing the substrate, etching the implanted portion of the first layer of the bilayer buried insulator to expose a surface of a second layer of the bilayer buried insulator, and forming a back gate over the exposed second layer, the back gate self-aligned to the ETSOI channel. |
| US09997604B2 |
Electrode connecting structure including adhesion layer and electronic device including the same
Provided are an electrode connecting structure that includes an adhesion layer formed between a graphene layer and a metal layer and an electronic device having the electrode connecting structure. The electrode connecting structure may include an adhesion layer formed of a two-dimensional material provided between the graphene layer and the metal layer. The graphene layer may be a diffusion barrier, and the adhesion layer may stably maintain the interface characteristics of the graphene layer and the metal layer when the metal layer is formed on a surface of the graphene layer. |
| US09997595B2 |
Semiconductor device, a micro-electro-mechanical resonator and a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device
A semiconductor device includes a silicon substrate layer with a decoupling region. The decoupling region of the silicon substrate layer comprises an array of lamellas laterally spaced apart from each other by cavities. Each lamella of the array of lamellas comprises at least 20% silicon dioxide. |
| US09997594B2 |
Gallium nitride based high electron mobility transistor (GaN-HEMT) device with an iron-doped cap layer and method of manufacturing the same
A compound semiconductor device includes: a GaN-based channel layer; a barrier layer of nitride semiconductor above the channel layer; and a cap layer of nitride semiconductor above the barrier layer, wherein the cap layer includes: a first region doped with Fe; and a second region above the first region, a concentration of Fe in the second region being lower than a concentration of Fe in the first region. |
| US09997583B2 |
Double-faced display panel and double-faced display device
A double-faced display panel and a double-faced display device comprising the double-faced display panel are provided. The double-faced display panel comprises: a first display sub-unit, provided with a first display surface and a first non-display surface opposite to each other; a second display sub-unit, provided with a second display surface and a second non-display surface opposite to each other, and arranged back to back with the first display sub-unit, the second non-display surface facing the first non-display surface; and a reflection unit, arranged between the first display sub-unit and the second display sub-unit. The reflection unit is configured to reflect display light emitted from the first display sub-unit back to the first display sub-unit and reflect display light emitted from the second display sub-unit back to the second display sub-unit. |
| US09997582B2 |
Organic light-emitting diode display
An organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display is disclosed. In one aspect, the OLED display includes a substrate, a scan line disposed over the substrate and configured to transmit a scan signal, a data line crossing the scan line and configured to transmit a data voltage and a driving voltage line crossing the scan line and configured to transmit a driving voltage. The OLED display also includes a switching transistor connected to the scan line and the data line, a driving transistor connected to the switching transistor and including a driving gate electrode, a driving source electrode, and a driving drain electrode and an OLED electrically connected to the driving transistor. The driving source electrode at least partially overlaps the driving voltage line in the depth dimension of the OLED display so as to form an assistance capacitor. |
| US09997581B2 |
Organic light-emitting diode display having high aperture ratio and method for manufacturing the same
An organic light-emitting diode display includes a substrate in which an emission area and a non-emission area are defined; a thin film transistor disposed in the non-emission area on the substrate; passivation layer disposed on the thin film transistor; a first storage capacitor electrode and a second storage capacitor electrode superposed thereon, having the passivation layer interposed therebetween, in the emission area; an overcoat layer disposed on the second storage capacitor electrode; and an anode disposed on the overcoat layer, coming into contact with one side of the second storage capacitor electrode through an overcoat layer contact hole penetrating the overcoat layer and, coming into contact with part of the thin film transistor through a passivation layer contact hole disposed in the overcoat layer contact hole and penetrating the passivation layer. |
| US09997580B2 |
Pixel structure and manufacturing method thereof, array substrate, display device
A pixel structure and a manufacturing method thereof, an array substrate and a display device are disclosed, which relate to display technology and solve the problem of low light extraction rate of the existing array substrate. The pixel structure comprises a display area and a transparent area, and further comprises a pixel circuit which includes an organic electroluminescence device and at least one storage capacitor. The organic electroluminescence device is arranged in the display area and the at least one storage capacitor is arranged in the transparent area. A first polar plate and a second polar plate of the respective storage capacitors are both made of a transparent conductive material, and the first and second polar plates are electrically isolated by at least a dielectric layer. |
| US09997579B2 |
Thin film transistor substrate for organic light-emitting diode display and manufacturing method thereof
Provided are a thin film transistor (TFT) substrate and a method of manufacturing the same. A TFT substrate includes: a substrate defining a pixel area, a first TFT including: an oxide semiconductor layer, a first gate electrode on the oxide semiconductor layer, a first source electrode, and a first drain electrode, a second TFT including: a second gate electrode, a polycrystalline semiconductor layer on the second gate electrode, a second source electrode, and a second drain electrode, a first gate insulating layer under the first gate electrode and the second gate electrode, the first gate insulating layer covering the oxide semiconductor layer, a second gate insulating layer under the polycrystalline semiconductor layer, the second gate insulating layer covering the first gate electrode and the second gate electrode, and an intermediate insulating layer on the first gate electrode and the polycrystalline semiconductor layer, the intermediate insulating layer including a nitride layer. |
| US09997576B2 |
Display device
To provide a display device with a manufacturing yield and/or a display device with suppressed mixture of colors between adjacent pixels. The display device includes a first pixel electrode, a second pixel electrode, a first insulating layer, a second insulating layer, and an adhesive layer. The first insulating layer includes a first opening. The second insulating layer includes a second opening. The first opening and the second opening are provided between the first pixel electrode and the second pixel electrode. In a top view, a periphery of the second opening is positioned on an inner side than a periphery of the first opening. The adhesive layer has a region overlapping with the second insulating layer below the second insulating layer. |
| US09997574B2 |
Organic light-emitting diode display having a plurality of electrodes for touch recognition
The present disclosure provides an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display substrate. The OLED display substrate includes a substrate and a plurality of organic light-emitting diode units. An organic light-emitting diode unit includes a first layer having an anode and a first electrode apart from the anode; an organic light-emitting layer; a cathode; and a second electrode insulated from the cathode. The anode and the cathode are configured to drive the organic light-emitting layer to emit light; and the first electrode and the second electrode are configured to recognize touch patterns. |
| US09997569B2 |
Memory device
According to one embodiment, a memory device includes a first electrode, a second electrode, a first layer, and a second layer. The first electrode includes a first element. The first layer is provided between the first electrode and the second electrode. The first layer includes at least one of an insulator or a first semiconductor. The second layer is provided between the first layer and the second electrode. The second layer includes a first region and a second region. The second region is provided between the first region and the second electrode. The second region includes a second element. A standard electrode potential of the second element is lower than a standard electrode potential of the first element. A concentration of nitrogen in the first region is higher than a concentration of nitrogen in the second region. |
| US09997567B1 |
Semiconductors structure having an RRAM structure and method for forming the same
A semiconductor structure includes a memory structure. The memory structure includes a memory element, a first barrier layer and a second barrier layer. The memory element includes titanium oxynitride. The first barrier layer includes at least one of silicon and silicon oxide. The first barrier layer is disposed on the memory element. The second barrier layer includes at least one of titanium and titanium oxide. The second barrier layer is disposed on the first barrier layer. |
| US09997566B1 |
Magnetoresistive random access memory devices and methods of manufacturing the same
Manufacturing an MRAM device may include forming an upper electrode on a magnetic tunnel junction stack, where the stack may include a lower electrode layer, a magnetic tunnel junction layer and a middle electrode layer that are sequentially formed on an insulating interlayer and a lower electrode contact on a substrate. The upper electrode may be formed on the middle electrode layer. An upper electrode protective structure may be formed to cover at least a sidewall and an upper surface of the upper electrode. The middle electrode layer, the magnetic tunnel junction layer and the lower electrode may be patterned by an etching process to form a middle electrode, a magnetic tunnel junction pattern and a lower electrode, respectively. The upper electrode protective structure may isolate the upper electrode from exposure during the patterning, and the upper electrode protective structure may remain on the upper electrode subsequently to the patterning. |
| US09997564B2 |
MTJ memory array subgrouping method and related drive circuitry
Embodiments of the present disclosure generally relate to data storage systems, and more particularly, to a SHE-MRAM device. The SHE-MRAM device includes a memory cell array having a plurality of first leads, a plurality of second leads, and a plurality of memory cells disposed between the plurality of first leads and the plurality of second leads. The second leads are made of a material having large spin orbit interactions and high electrical resistivity. The SHE-MRAM device further includes a periphery circuitry having multiple pairs of transistors. The multiple pairs of transistors reduce the length a current has to flow through a second lead of the plurality of second leads. By limiting the distance a current can flow through the second lead, applying excessive voltage to the second lead is avoided. |
| US09997562B1 |
Mram memory device and manufacturing method thereof
A method of forming a semiconductor device is disclosed. The method includes providing a substrate comprising a circuit component formed on a substrate surface. Back-end-of-line (BEOL) processing is performed to form a plurality of inter-level dielectric (ILD) layers over the substrate. A storage unit in the memory region of the via level of an ILD level. A cell dielectric layer is formed over the storage unit. The cell dielectric layer comprises a step structure created by an elevated topography of the memory region relative to the non-memory region of the via level. The elevated topography is defined by the storage unit. Chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) process is performed on the cell dielectric layer to remove the step structure of the cell dielectric layer and form a planar cell dielectric top surface extending uniformly across the memory region and the non-memory region of the via level. |
| US09997561B2 |
Light emitting diode module, display panel having the same and method of manufacturing the same
In some examples, a semiconductor device may comprise a semiconductor chip including a plurality of pixels, each pixel formed of a plurality of sub-pixels, such as a red sub-pixel, green sub-pixel and blue sub-pixel. Each sub-pixel may comprise a light emitting diode. A first signal line may connect to signal terminals of a first group sub-pixels (e.g., arranged in the same row), and a second signal line may connect to common terminals of a second group of sub-pixels (e.g., arranged in the same column). The number of chip pads may thus be reduced to provide increased design flexibility in location and/or allowing an increase in chip pad size. In some examples, a light transmissive material may be formed in openings of a semiconductor growth substrate on which light emitting cells of the sub-pixels were grown. The light transmissive material of some of the sub-pixels may comprise a wavelength conversion material and/or filter. Exemplary display panels and methods of manufacturing semiconductor devices and display panels are also disclosed. |
| US09997556B2 |
Image sensor
An image sensor includes: a pixel array including a plurality of unit pixels that are arrayed in two dimensions, wherein each of the plurality of the unit pixels includes: a substrate that including a photoelectric conversion element; a recess pattern formed in the substrate to overlap with the photoelectric conversion element and correspond to a center of the photoelectric conversion element; a first gate suitable for filling at least the recess pattern; a second gate formed over the substrate to overlap with the photoelectric conversion element and to be adjacent to the first gate in a first diagonal direction; and a third gate formed over the substrate to overlap with the photoelectric conversion element and to be adjacent to the first gate in a second diagonal direction which intersects with the first diagonal direction. |
| US09997554B2 |
Chip scale package camera module with glass interposer having lateral conductive traces between a first and second glass layer and method for making the same
One or more embodiments disclosed herein are directed to a chip scale package camera module that includes a glass interposer between a lens and an image sensor. In some embodiments, the glass interposer is made from one or more layers of optical quality glass and includes an infrared filter coating. The glass interposer also includes electrically conductive paths to connect the image sensor, mounted on one side of the glass interposer, with other components such as capacitors, which may be mounted on a different side of the glass interposer, and the rest of the camera system. The conductive layers include traces and vias that are formed in the glass interposer in areas away from the path of light in the camera module, such that the traces and vias do not block the light between the lens and the image sensor. |
| US09997552B2 |
Solid-state imaging device, imaging apparatus, electronic apparatus, and semiconductor device
The present technology relates to a solid-state imaging device, an imaging apparatus, an electronic apparatus, and a semiconductor device, which can prevent overflow of an underfilling resin filled in a portion adapted to connect the substrate to the flip chip and can prevent secondary damages such as electric short-circuit and contact with processing equipment. By utilizing a molding technology of forming an on-chip lens, a dam is formed in a ring shape or a square shape in a manner surrounding a range where a flip chip is connected via a solder bump on an upper layer of a substrate of the solid-state imaging device and provided in order to form the on-chip lens. This can block the underfilling resin filled in the range where the substrate and the flip chip are electrically connected. The present technology can be applied to a solid-state imaging device. |
| US09997550B2 |
Photodetector on silicon-on-insulator
A photodetector is formed in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) type semiconductor layer. The photodetector includes a first region and a second region of a first conductivity type separated from each other by a central region of a second conductivity type so as to define a phototransistor. A transverse surface of the semiconductor layer is configured to receive an illumination. The transverse surface extends orthogonally to an upper surface of the central region. |
| US09997542B2 |
Display device and method for manufacturing the same
An object of the present invention is to decrease substantial resistance of an electrode such as a transparent electrode or a wiring, and furthermore, to provide a display device for which is possible to apply same voltage to light-emitting elements. In the invention, a auxiliary wiring that is formed in one layer in which a conductive film of a semiconductor element such as an electrode, wiring, a signal line, a scanning line, or a power supply line is connected to an electrode typified by a second electrode, and a wiring. It is preferable that the auxiliary wiring is formed into a conductive film to include low resistive material, especially, formed to include lower resistive material than the resistance of an electrode and a wiring that is required to reduce the resistance. |
| US09997541B2 |
Liquid crystal display device
A liquid crystal display includes: first and second thin film transistors and a compensation transistor formed on a first insulation substrate; a first gray subpixel electrode connected to a drain electrode of the first thin film transistor; a second gray subpixel electrode connected to a drain electrode of the compensation transistor and a drain electrode of the second thin film transistor; and first and second reference voltage lines overlapping at least one of the second gray subpixel electrode and the first gray subpixel electrode, wherein a pixel area occupied by the first gray subpixel electrode and the second gray subpixel electrode is extended in a first direction, the first and second reference voltage lines are extended in a second direction, which is substantially perpendicular to the first direction, to overlap the pixel area, and one of the first and second reference voltage lines is connected to a source electrode of the compensation transistor. |
| US09997536B2 |
Semiconductor memory device
According to one embodiment, a semiconductor memory device includes a substrate, a stacked body, a columnar section and an interconnection section. The stacked body includes a first insulating layer, a first electrode layer, a second insulating layer, and a second electrode layer. The first insulating layer includes a first surface facing the substrate, and a second surface facing the first electrode layer and opposite to the first surface. The second insulating layer includes a third surface facing the first electrode layer, and a fourth surface facing the second electrode layer and opposite to the third surface. A width of the interconnection section located between the first surface and the second surface in a second direction perpendicular to a stacking direction and a first direction is larger than a width of the interconnection section located between the third surface and the fourth surface in the second direction. |
| US09997531B2 |
Semiconductor memory device
A semiconductor memory device according to an embodiment comprises: a memory cell array, the memory cell array including: an inter-layer insulating layer and a conductive layer stacked in a stacking direction; a columnar semiconductor layer having a side surface that faces side surfaces of the inter-layer insulating layer and the conductive layer and extending in the stacking direction; and a block insulating layer and a block high-permittivity layer disposed between the columnar semiconductor layer and the conductive layer, the block insulating layer including: a first block insulating film that covers a side surface of the columnar semiconductor layer from a lower surface of the inter-layer insulating layer to an upper surface of the conductive layer in the stacking direction; and a second block insulating film that contacts the first block insulating film and covers at least a side surface and a lower surface of the conductive layer. |
| US09997530B2 |
Three-dimensional semiconductor memory device and method of fabricating the same
A three-dimensional semiconductor memory device includes a peripheral circuit structure on a substrate, a horizontal active layer on the peripheral circuit structure, stacks provided on the horizontal active layer to include a plurality of electrodes, a vertical structure vertically penetrating the stacks, a common source region between ones of the stacks and in the horizontal active layer, and pick-up regions in the horizontal active layer. The horizontal active layer includes first, second, and third active semiconductor layers sequentially stacked on the peripheral circuit structure. The first and third active semiconductor layers are doped to have high and low impurity concentrations, respectively, and the second active semiconductor layer includes an impurity diffusion restraining material. |
| US09997526B2 |
Semiconductor device and method for manufacturing same
According to one embodiment, a method for manufacturing a semiconductor device is disclosed. The method includes forming a stacked body alternately stacked with a plurality of members and a plurality of intermediate bodies having materials different from materials of the plurality of members, processing an end portion of at least two layers of the plurality of members sequentially in a stacking direction of the stacked body, and forming a step-wise step stacked with the plurality of members and the plurality of intermediate bodies, forming a plurality of side wall films contacting the step and making the end portion of the plurality of members in a step-wise. The making the end portion of the plurality of members in a step-wise includes retreating a portion of the plurality of members, the portion separated from the plurality of side wall films and exposed from the stacked body. |
| US09997522B2 |
Method for fabricating a local interconnect in a semiconductor device
A semiconductor device comprises a first gate electrode disposed on a substrate, a first source/drain region, and a local interconnect connecting the first gate electrode and the first source/drain region. The local interconnect is disposed between the substrate and a first metal wiring layer in which a power supply line is disposed. The local interconnect has a key hole shape in a plan view, and has a head portion, a neck portion and a body portion connected to the head portion via the neck portion. The neck portion is disposed over the first gate electrode and the body portion is disposed over the first source/drain region. |
| US09997520B2 |
Semiconductor device structure with capacitor and method for forming the same
A semiconductor device structure is provided. The semiconductor device structure includes a substrate. The semiconductor device structure includes a conductive structure in or over the substrate. The semiconductor device structure includes a first dielectric layer over the substrate. The first dielectric layer has a first opening exposing the conductive structure. The semiconductor device structure includes a second dielectric layer over the first dielectric layer. The second dielectric layer has a second opening connected to the first opening and exposing the conductive structure. The semiconductor device structure includes a capacitor covering a first inner wall of the first opening, a second inner wall of the second opening, and a top surface of the conductive structure. The capacitor is electrically connected to the conductive structure. |
| US09997516B2 |
Semiconductor device and power amplifier circuit
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor substrate and first and second bipolar transistors. The semiconductor substrate includes first and second main surfaces opposing each other. The first bipolar transistor is formed on the first main surface of the semiconductor substrate and includes a first emitter layer. The second bipolar transistor is formed on the first main surface of the semiconductor substrate and includes a second emitter layer and a resistor layer. The resistor layer is stacked on the second emitter layer in a direction normal to the first main surface. |
| US09997513B1 |
Package including a plurality of stacked semiconductor devices having area efficient ESD protection
A multi-chip device can include stacked semiconductor devices including a top and bottom semiconductor device. The top semiconductor device can include a first circuit. The bottom semiconductor device can include a first through via and a first ESD protection circuit electrically connected to an external electrical connection of the device. The first ESD protection circuit can include a first ESD protection structure. The first through via can provide an electrical connection through the bottom semiconductor device between the external electrical connection and a first terminal of the first circuit, which can be free of an electrical connection to an ESD protection circuit having the first ESD protection structure. |
| US09997511B2 |
ESD protection circuit with plural avalanche diodes
An electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit (FIG. 3C) is disclosed. The circuit includes a bipolar transistor (304) having a base, collector, and emitter. Each of a plurality of diodes (308-316) has a first terminal coupled to the base and a second terminal coupled to the collector. The collector is connected to a first terminal (V+). The emitter is connected to a first power supply terminal (V−). |
| US09997510B2 |
Semiconductor device layout structure
The invention provides a semiconductor device layout structure disposed in an active region. The semiconductor device layout structure includes a first well region having a first conduction type. A second well region having a second conduction type opposite the first conduction type is disposed adjacent to and enclosing the first well region. A first doped region having the second conduction type is disposed within the first well region. A second doped region having the second conduction type is disposed within the first well region. The second doped region is separated from and surrounds the first doped region. A third doped region having the second conduction type is disposed within the second well region. |
| US09997509B2 |
Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit
Aspects disclosed in the detailed description include an electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection circuit. In this regard, in one aspect, an ESD protection circuit is provided to protect an integrated circuit (IC) during fabrication and production. An ESD detection circuitry detects an ESD event by detecting a voltage spike between a supply rail and a ground rail exceeding an ESD threshold voltage. In response to detecting the ESD event, an ESD clamping circuitry is activated to discharge the ESD event, thus protecting the IC from being damaged by the ESD event. By detecting the ESD event based on the ESD threshold voltage, as opposed to detecting the ESD event based on rise time of the voltage spike, it is possible to prevent the ESD clamping circuitry from missing voltage spikes associated with a slow rise time or being falsely activated by a normal power-on voltage associated with a fast rise time. |
| US09997504B2 |
Electronic device module and method of manufacturing the same
In one general aspect, an electronic device module includes a first board, a first device mounted on a first surface of the first board, a second board disposed below the first board, and a plurality of second devices disposed between the first board and the second board, wherein a surface of each second device the plurality of second devices is bonded to a second surface of the first board and another surface of each of the second devices is bonded to the second board. |
| US09997502B2 |
Component arrangement determination method
There is provided a component arrangement determination method, in a component mounting apparatus including a plurality of component supply units for supplying components, for determining arrangement of the component supply units used for production of a plurality of types of component mounted boards. The method includes specifying a production frequency of each of the plurality of types of component mounted boards for a predetermined period of time, grouping the plurality of types of component mounted boards into a plurality of groups capable of being produced without changing the arrangement of the component supply units based on the production frequency, and determining arrangement, in the component mounting apparatus, of the component supply units for supplying components necessary for production of types of component mounted boards that belong to each group of the plurality of groups. |
| US09997498B2 |
Semiconductor package assembly
In one implementation, a semiconductor package assembly includes a semiconductor die, a first molding compound covering a back surface of the semiconductor die, a redistribution layer (RDL) structure disposed on a front surface of the semiconductor die, wherein the semiconductor die is coupled to the RDL structure, and a passive device, embedded in the redistribution layer (RDL) structure and coupled to the semiconductor die. |
| US09997494B2 |
Three-dimensional silicon structure for integrated circuits and cooling thereof
Embodiments of a three-dimensional silicon structure for integrated circuits and cooling thereof are described. In one aspect, a device includes a silicon substrate having a first primary side and a second primary side opposite the first primary side. The first primary side includes a circuit structure disposed thereon. The second primary side includes a plurality of fins monolithically formed thereon. |
| US09997491B2 |
Method of determining curing conditions, method of producing circuit device, and circuit device
A method of determining curing conditions is for determining the curing conditions of a thermosetting resin to seal a conductive part between a substrate and an electronic component. A curing degree curve is created. The curing degree curve indicates, with respect to each of heating temperatures, relationship between heating time and curing degree of the thermosetting resin. On the basis of the created curing degree curve, a void removal time of a void naturally moving upward in the thermosetting resin, at a first heating temperature, is calculated. The first heating temperature is one of the heating temperatures. |
| US09997487B2 |
Display device with improved anisotropic conductive film
A display device includes: a first substrate; a wire portion disposed on the first substrate; a pad portion connected with the wire portion; a printed circuit board facing the first substrate and including an output electrode; and an anisotropic conductive film disposed between the first substrate and the printed circuit board, wherein the anisotropic conductive film comprises a plurality of conductive particles disposed with a constant gap, and the plurality of conductive particles respectively disposed at apexes of virtual regular hexagons in a plan view, with a longest diagonal of the respective virtual regular hexagon being parallel with the y-axis. |
| US09997485B2 |
Bonding structure and method
A bonding structure and a method for bonding components, wherein the bonding structure includes a nanoparticle preform. In accordance with embodiments, the nanoparticle preform is placed on a substrate and a workpiece is placed on the nanoparticle preform. |
| US09997484B2 |
Semiconductor device and manufacturing method of the same
A semiconductor device includes a wiring substrate, a first semiconductor element, a second semiconductor element, a bump, a bonding portion, and a resin portion. The second semiconductor element is between the wiring substrate and the first semiconductor element. The bump is between the first and second semiconductor elements and electrically connects the first and second semiconductor elements. The bonding portion is between the first and second semiconductor elements, bonds the first semiconductor element to the second semiconductor element, and has a first elastic modulus. The resin portion has a second elastic modulus higher than the first elastic modulus. The resin portion is between the first and second semiconductor elements. The first semiconductor element is between a second portion of the resin portion and the wiring substrate. A third portion of the resin portion is overlapped with the first and second semiconductor elements. |
| US09997483B2 |
Ball amount process in the manufacturing of integrated circuit
An integrated circuit structure includes a semiconductor substrate, a metal pad over the semiconductor substrate, a passivation layer including a portion over the metal pad, a polymer layer over the passivation layer, and a Post-Passivation Interconnect (PPI) over the polymer layer. The PPI is electrically connected to the metal pad. The PPI includes a PPI line have a first width, and a PPI pad having a second width greater than the first width. The PPI pad is connected to the PPI line. The PPI pad includes an inner portion having a first thickness, and an edge portion having a second thickness smaller than the first thickness. |
| US09997478B1 |
Circuits and antennas integrated in dies and corresponding method
Circuits and antennas integrated in dies and corresponding method. The circuits and the antennas are positioned on the front surface and the back surface of the substrate respectively, but both are electrically coupled to the shared ground of the substrate. To maintain the mechanical strength of the die, some dummy metals are positioned on the back surface of the substrate and positioned around but separated away the antennas. Further, to reduce the potential side effects induced by the induced current, some ground balls are positioned on one or surfaces of the substrate. |
| US09997476B2 |
Multi-die package having different types of semiconductor dies attached to the same thermally conductive flange
A multi-die package is manufactured by attaching a first semiconductor die made of a first semiconductor material to a thermally conductive flange via a first die attach material, and attaching a second semiconductor die to the same thermally conductive flange as the first semiconductor die via a second die attach material. The second semiconductor die is made of a second semiconductor material different than the first semiconductor material. The first semiconductor die is held in place by the first die attach material during attachment of the second semiconductor die to the flange. Leads are attached to the thermally conductive flange or to an insulating member secured to the flange. The leads provide external electrical access to the first and second semiconductor dies. |
| US09997472B2 |
Support for long channel length nanowire transistors
A nanowire device includes a first component formed on a substrate and a second component disposed apart from the first component on the substrate. A nanowire is configured to connect the first component to the second component. An anchor pad is formed along a span of the nanowire and configured to support the nanowire along the span to prevent sagging. |
| US09997471B2 |
Semiconductor package structure and manufacturing method thereof
A semiconductor package structure includes a redistribution layer (RDL), a chip, a plurality of interconnecting bumps and an encapsulant. The redistribution layer has a first surface and a second surface opposite to each other. The chip is disposed over the redistribution layer with a plurality of contact pads facing the first surface and electrically connected to the redistribution layer. The interconnecting bumps are disposed over the first surface and electrically connected to the redistribution layer. The encapsulant is disposed over the first surface of the redistribution layer, and the encapsulant encloses the chip and surrounds lateral walls of the interconnecting bumps. |
| US09997461B2 |
Electrically conductive laminate structures
Some embodiments include electrical interconnects. The interconnects may contain laminate structures having a graphene region sandwiched between non-graphene regions. In some embodiments the graphene and non-graphene regions may be nested within one another. In some embodiments an electrically insulative material may be over an upper surface of the laminate structure, and an opening may extend through the insulative material to a portion of the laminate structure. Electrically conductive material may be within the opening and in electrical contact with at least one of the non-graphene regions of the laminate structure. Some embodiments include methods of forming electrical interconnects in which non-graphene material and graphene are alternately formed within a trench to form nested non-graphene and graphene regions. |
| US09997456B2 |
Interconnect structure having power rail structure and related method
Disclosed herein is an integrated circuit (IC) including a first metal layer running in a first direction, a second metal layer running in a second direction perpendicular to the first direction, the second metal layer above the first metal layer and a third metal layer running in the first direction above the second metal layer. A viabar electrically connects the first metal layer to the third metal layer, the viabar running in the first direction wherein the viabar vertically extends from the first metal layer to the third metal layer. A method of manufacturing the IC is provided. |
| US09997455B2 |
Device architecture and method for precision enhancement of vertical semiconductor devices
Improvement of key electrical specifications of vertical semiconductor devices, usually found in the class of devices known as discrete semiconductors, has a direct impact on the performance achievement and power efficiency of the systems in which these devices are used. Imprecise vertical device specifications cause system builders to either screen incoming devices for their required specification targets or to design their system with lower performance or lower efficiency than desired. Disclosed is an architecture and method for achieving a desired target specification for a vertical semiconductor device. Precise trimming of threshold voltage improves targeting of both on-resistance and switching time. Precise trimming of gate resistance also improves targeting of switching time. Precise trimming of a device's effective width improves targeting of both on-resistance and current-carrying capability. Device parametrics are trimmed to improve a single device, or a parametric specification is targeted to match specifications on two or more devices. |
| US09997452B1 |
Forming conductive plugs for memory device
Apparatuses and methods with conductive plugs for a memory device are described. An example method includes: forming a plurality of shallow trench isolations elongating from a first surface of a semiconductor substrate toward a second surface of the semiconductor substrate; thinning the semiconductor substrate until first surfaces of the plurality of shallow trench isolations are exposed; forming plurality of via holes, each via hole of the plurality of via holes through a corresponding one of the plurality of shallow trench isolations; and filling the plurality of via holes with a conductive material to form a plurality of conductive plugs. |
| US09997448B1 |
Wiring substrate
A wiring substrate includes a flexible insulation substrate, a first wiring layer formed on an upper surface of the insulation substrate, a second wiring layer formed on a lower surface of the insulation substrate, and through wiring bonded to the first wiring layer and the second wiring layer and formed in a through hole extending through the first wiring layer, the insulation substrate, and the second wiring layer. The through wiring includes a projection that extends along a lower surface of the second wiring layer located outside the through hole. An upper surface of the through wiring is flush with an upper surface of the first wiring layer. |
| US09997447B1 |
Semiconductor devices
A semiconductor device package includes a carrier, a first insulation layer, a capacitor element, a plurality of interconnection structures, a plurality of substantially parallel top-side metal bars, and a plurality of substantially parallel bottom-side metal bars. The first insulation layer is on the carrier and has a first surface and a second surface adjacent to the carrier and opposite to the first surface, the first insulation layer defining a plurality of through holes. The capacitor element is in the first insulation layer, the capacitor element including a top electrode and a bottom electrode. The plurality of interconnection structures are within the through holes and formed as conductive through holes. The plurality of substantially parallel top-side metal bars are on the first surface of the first insulation layer. The plurality of substantially parallel bottom-side metal bars are on the second surface of the first insulation layer. |
| US09997443B2 |
Through vias and methods of formation thereof
In accordance with an embodiment of the present invention, a semiconductor chip includes a device region disposed in or over a substrate, a doped region disposed in the device region, and a through via disposed in the substrate. The through via extends through the doped region. |
| US09997440B2 |
Protection layer for adhesive material at wafer edge
A three-dimensional integrated circuit (3DIC) including a first substrate having a first surface and a second surface opposite to the first surface and a second substrate attached to the first surface of the first substrate. The 3DIC further includes an interconnect between attached to the first surface of the first substrate and the second substrate and a plurality of through vias formed in the first substrate and electrically coupled to the interconnect. The 3DIC further includes a protection layer over the second surface of the first substrate, wherein each of the plurality of through vias protrudes through the protection layer and a plurality of dies, each die of the plurality of dies attached to at least one through via of the plurality of through vias. |
| US09997436B2 |
Apparatus and method of three dimensional conductive lines
An apparatus and method of three dimensional conductive lines comprising a first memory column segment in a first tier, a second memory column segment in a second tier, and conductive lines connecting the first memory column segment to the second memory column segment. In some embodiments a conductive line is disposed in the first tier on a first side of the memory column and in the second tier on a second side of the memory column. |
| US09997435B2 |
Compliant pin fin heat sink and methods
A heat sink includes a plurality of layers being disposed substantially parallel with a surface of a heat source. The layers include a plurality of pin portions spaced apart from each other in a planar arrangement wherein the pin portions of the layers are stacked and bonded to form pin fins extending in a transverse direction relative to the heat source to sink heat. A compliant layer is disposed between the pin fins and a mechanical load. The compliant layer provides compliance such that the pin fins accommodate dimensional differences when interfacing with the heat source. |
| US09997430B2 |
Heat dissipation structure of semiconductor device
A heat dissipation structure of a semiconductor device with excellent heat dissipation applicable to surface-mount thin semiconductor devices is provided, and preferably a heat dissipation structure of a semiconductor device also with excellent insulating reliability is provided. In a heat dissipation structure 101 of a semiconductor device 10, the semiconductor device 10 has an electric bonding surface 11a electrically connected with a substrate 20 and a heat dissipation surface 11b on an opposite side thereof, wherein the heat dissipation surface 11b is bonded or contacted to a heat spreader 31 via a non-insulated member 32, and the heat spreader 31 is bonded or contacted to a heat sink 30 via an insulated member 41. |
| US09997421B2 |
Top contact resistance measurement in vertical FETS
A test device includes a diode junction layer having a first dopant conductivity region and a second dopant conductivity region formed within the diode junction layer on opposite sides of a diode junction. A first portion of vertical transistors is formed over the first dopant conductivity region as a device under test, and a second portion of vertical transistors is formed over the second dopant conductivity region. A common source/drain region is formed over the first and second portions of vertical transistors. Current through the first portion of vertical transistors permits measurement of a resistance at a probe contact connected to the common source/drain region. |
| US09997420B2 |
Method and/or system for chemical mechanical planarization (CMP)
One or more methods or systems for performing chemical mechanical planarization (CMP) are provided. The system includes at least one of an emitter, a detector, a spectroscopic signal generator, a comparator, a spectral library, a controller or a CMP device. A spectroscopic signal is generated and is used to determine the thickness of a first material formed on or from a wafer by comparing the spectroscopic signal to a spectral library. Responsive to the thickness not being equal to the desired thickness, the controller instructs the CMP device to perform a rotation to reduce the thickness of the first material. The system and method herein increase the sensitivity of the CMP, such that the thickness of the first material is reduced with greater accuracy and precision, as compared to where the thickness is not measured between consecutive rotations of a wafer. |
| US09997419B2 |
Confined eptaxial growth for continued pitch scaling
A technique relates to manufacturing a finFET device. A plurality of first and second semiconductor fins are formed on a substrate. Gate stacks are formed on the substrate, each including a gate, a hard mask and an oxide layer. A dielectric spacer layer is deposited. A sacrificial fill material is deposited on the finFET device and planarized. A second hard mask is deposited, a trench area is patterned in the hard mask parallel to the first and second semiconductor fins, and the sacrificial fill material is anisotropically etched to create a trench. A dielectric wall is formed in the trench and the second hard mask and sacrificial fill material are removed. |
| US09997416B2 |
Low resistance dual liner contacts for fin field-effect transistors (FinFETs)
A semiconductor device includes first and second gate structures on a substrate respectively corresponding to an n-type and a p-type transistor, a first source/drain on the substrate corresponding to the n-type transistor, a second source/drain on the substrate corresponding to the p-type transistor, a first contact trench over the first source/drain and adjacent the first gate structure, a second contact trench over the second source/drain and adjacent the second gate structure, a first liner layer in the first trench positioned at a bottom part of the first trench, a second liner layer in the second trench and on the first liner layer in the first trench, a metallization layer in the first and second trenches on the second liner layer, and a first silicide contact between the first liner layer and the first source/drain and a second silicide contact between the second liner layer and the second source/drain. |
| US09997410B1 |
Methods for forming the isolation structure of the semiconductor device and semiconductor devices
A method for forming an isolation structure of a semiconductor device is provided. The method includes forming a patterned dielectric structure in a first area and a second area of a substrate; forming a first isolation structure in the first area and forming a second isolation structure in the second area of the substrate; forming a cap layer over the first area and the second area of the substrate and performing an etching process to etch the cap layer of the second area completely; and performing an oxidation process on the second area to form a first oxide region over the second isolation structure and under the bottom surface of the patterned dielectric structure of the second area. |
| US09997407B2 |
Voidless contact metal structures
Voidless contact metal structures are provided. In one embodiment, a voidless contact metal structure is provided by first providing a first contact metal that contains a void within a contact opening. The void is then opened to provide a divot in the first contact metal. After forming a dielectric spacer atop a portion of first contact metal, a second contact metal is then formed that lacks any void. The second contact metal fills the entirety of the divot within the first contact metal. In another embodiment, two diffusion barrier structures are provided within a contact opening, followed by the formation of a contact metal structure that lacks any void. |
| US09997402B2 |
Method of manufacturing a wiring structure on a self-forming barrier pattern
In a method of manufacturing a semiconductor device, a first insulating interlayer and a sacrificial layer is sequentially formed on a substrate. The sacrificial layer is partially removed to form a first opening exposing an upper surface of the first insulating interlayer. An insulating liner including silicon oxide is conformally formed on the exposed upper surface of the first insulating interlayer and a sidewall of the first opening. At least a portion of the insulating liner on the upper surface of the first insulating interlayer and a portion of the first insulating interlayer thereunder are removed to form a second opening connected to the first opening. A self-forming barrier (SFB) pattern is formed on a sidewall of the second opening and the insulating liner. A wiring structure is formed to fill the first and second openings. After the sacrificial layer is removed, a second insulating interlayer is formed. |
| US09997400B2 |
Semiconductor device and method of manufacturing the same
A semiconductor device includes a substrate, a first metal interconnection provided on a first region of the substrate, and a second metal interconnection provided on a second region of the substrate. A width of the second metal interconnection is greater than a width of the first metal interconnection. The first metal interconnection includes a metal pattern. The second metal interconnection includes a lower metal pattern having a concave surface at its top, an upper metal pattern disposed on the concave surface at the top of the lower metal pattern, and a first barrier pattern interposed between the lower metal pattern and the upper metal pattern. The metal interconnections are formed by a damascene process including deposition, reflow, metal implantation, and planarization processes. |
| US09997397B2 |
Semiconductor structure and manufacturing method thereof
A semiconductor structure includes a substrate, at least one first epitaxial layer, and at least one second epitaxial layer. The substrate has a plurality of recesses multidimensionally arranged therein. The first epitaxial layer is disposed at least in the recesses of the substrate. The second epitaxial layer is disposed on the first epitaxial layer. |
| US09997396B2 |
Deep trench isolation structure and method for improved product yield
A semiconductor structure having a deep trench isolation structure for improved product yield is disclosed. The semiconductor structure includes a deep trench having a filler material therein. The deep trench is adjacent to field oxide regions in a semiconductor substrate. A high density plasma (HDP) oxide layer, substantially free of thermal oxide, is situated over the filler material in the deep trench. The HDP oxide layer has a substantially co-planar top surface with at least one of the field oxide regions. According to the present disclosure, formation of nodules in the deep trench is prevented. |
| US09997395B2 |
Fabrication method of a stack of electronic devices
This method includes the following steps: a) providing a first structure successively including a substrate, an electronic device and a dielectric layer; b) providing a second structure successively including a substrate, an active layer, an intermediate layer, a first semiconducting layer and a porous second semiconducting layer; c) bonding the first and second structures by direct bonding between the dielectric layer and the porous second semiconducting layer; d) removing the substrate of the second structure so as to expose the active layer; e) adding dopants to the first semiconducting layer or to the active layer; f) irradiating the first semiconducting layer by a pulse laser so as to thermally activate the corresponding dopants. |
| US09997393B1 |
Methods for fabricating integrated circuits including substrate contacts
Methods for fabricating integrated circuits are provided. In one example, a method includes depositing an ILD layer overlying a SOI substrate including a device structure and an isolation structure. The device structure is disposed on a semiconductor layer of the SOI substrate and includes a metal silicide region and the isolation structure extends through the semiconductor layer to a buried insulator layer of the SOI substrate. A patterned mask is used for etching through the ILD layer and forming a device contact opening that exposes the metal silicide region and a substrate contact opening that exposes the isolation structure. A device contact is formed in the device contact opening. The isolation structure and the buried insulator layer are etched through to extend the substrate contact opening to a support substrate of the SOI substrate. A substrate contact is formed in the substrate contact opening. |
| US09997389B2 |
Bipolar mobile electrostatic carriers for wafer processing
In one embodiment, there is provided a carrier comprising a top semiconductor layer having isolated positive electrode regions and isolated negative electrode regions separated by a frontside trench through the top semiconductor layer extending at least to an underlying insulating layer positioned between the top semiconductor layer and a bottom semiconductor layer. A dielectric layer covers the top exposed surfaces of the carrier. Backside trenches through the bottom semiconductor layer extending at least to the insulating layer form isolated backside regions corresponding to the frontside positive and negative electrode regions. Backside contacts positioned on the bottom semiconductor layer and coupled to the positive and negative electrode regions allow for the electric charging of the frontside electrode regions. |
| US09997385B2 |
Centering substrates on a chuck
An apparatus and an associated method. The apparatus includes a chuck in a process chamber, an array of three or more ultrasonic sensors in the process chamber, a ceramic ring surrounding the chuck, and a controller connected to the ultrasonic sensors. The chuck is configured to removeably hold a substrate for processing. Each ultrasonic sensor may send a respective ultrasonic sound wave to a respective preselected peripheral region of the substrate and receive a respective return ultrasonic sound wave from the preselected peripheral region. The controller may compare a measured position of the substrate on the chuck to a specified placement of the substrate on the chuck based on a measured elapsed time between sending the ultrasonic sound wave and receiving the return ultrasonic sound wave for each ultrasonic sensor. The method compares a measured position of the substrate on the chuck to a specified position on the chuck. |
| US09997384B2 |
Methods for transporting wafers between wafer holders and chambers
An apparatus comprises a process chamber, and a loadlock connected to the process chamber. The loadlock is configured to have a wafer holder disposed therein. The wafer holder is configured to store a plurality of wafers, and is configured to transport the plurality of wafers away from the loadlock. |
| US09997376B2 |
Encapsulated dies with enhanced thermal performance
The present disclosure relates to enhancing the thermal performance of encapsulated flip chip dies. According to an exemplary process, a plurality of flip chip dies are attached on a top surface of a carrier, and a first mold compound is applied over the top surface of the carrier to encapsulate the plurality of flip chip dies. The first mold compound is thinned down to expose a substrate of each flip chip die and the substrate of each flip chip die is then substantially etched away to provide an etched flip chip die that has an exposed surface at the bottom of a cavity. Next, a second mold compound with high thermal conductivity is applied to substantially fill each cavity and the top surface of the second mold compound is planarized. Finally, the encapsulated etched flip chip dies can be marked, singulated, and tested as a module. |
| US09997375B2 |
LED unit and manufacturing method thereof
An LED unit according to the invention has a resin housing which is detachably assembled to a vehicle lamp, a lead frame which has a terminal portion which is connected to an exterior terminal, an LED mounting portion and a control part mounting portion and lead frame which is provided integrally on the housing, an LED which is mounted on the LED mounting portion, and a control part which is mounted on the control part mounting portion for controlling the illumination of the LED. The lead frame has a support resin which is a resin material which holds the LED mounting portion in such a way as to surround the LED mounting portion. The lead frame is bent to a back side of the LED at areas outside the support resin, and the control part mounting portion and the terminal portion are formed respectively by the bent portions. |
| US09997372B2 |
Technique to deposit sidewall passivation for high aspect ratio cylinder etch
Various embodiments herein relate to methods, apparatus and systems for forming a recessed feature in dielectric material on a semiconductor substrate. Separate etching and deposition operations are employed in a cyclic manner. Each etching operation partially etches the feature. Each deposition operation forms a protective coating on the sidewalls of the feature to prevent lateral etch of the dielectric material during the etching operations. The protective coating may be deposited using methods that result in formation of the protective coating along substantially the entire length of the sidewalls. The protective coating may be deposited using particular reactants having low sticking coefficients in some embodiments. The protective coating may also be deposited using particular reaction mechanisms that result in substantially complete sidewall coating. In some cases the protective coating is deposited using plasma assisted atomic layer deposition or plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition. |
| US09997371B1 |
Atomic layer etch methods and hardware for patterning applications
Methods and apparatuses for patterning carbon-containing material over a layer to be etched are provided herein. Methods involve trimming carbon-containing material by atomic layer etching including exposing the carbon-containing material to an oxygen-containing gas without a plasma to modify a surface of the carbon-containing material and exposing the carbon-containing material to an inert gas and igniting a plasma to remove the modified surface of the carbon-containing material. Methods may be used for multiple patterning techniques such as double and quad patterning. Methods also include depositing a conformal film over a carbon-containing material patterned using atomic layer etching without breaking vacuum. |
| US09997369B2 |
Margin for fin cut using self-aligned triple patterning
A method for fabricating a semiconductor structure. The method includes forming a plurality of mandrel structures. A plurality of first spacers is formed on sidewalls of the mandrel structures. A plurality of second spacers is formed on sidewalls of the first spacers. The plurality of first spacers is removed selective to the plurality of second spacers and mandrel structures. A cut mask is formed over a first set of second spacers in the plurality of second spacers and a first set of mandrel structures in the plurality of mandrel structures. A second set of second spacers in the plurality of spacers and a second set of mandrel structures in the plurality of mandrel structures remain exposed. One of the second set of mandrel structures and the second set of second spacers is removed selective to the second set of second spacers and the second set of mandrel structures, respectively. |
| US09997364B2 |
High aspect ratio etch
A method for etching a layer in a processing chamber is provided. A plurality of cycles is provided, where each cycle comprises a deposition phase, a clearing phase, and an etching phase. The deposition phase comprises flowing a deposition gas comprising a fluorocarbon or hydrofluorocarbon gas into the processing chamber, maintaining a deposition phase pressure of at least 50 mTorr, transforming the deposition gas into a plasma, and stopping the deposition phase. The clearing phase comprises flowing a clearing gas comprising a halogen containing gas into the processing chamber, maintaining a clearing phase pressure of less than 40 mTorr, transforming the clearing gas into a plasma, and stopping the clearing phase. The etching phase comprises flowing an etching gas comprising a halogen containing gas into the processing chamber, maintaining an etching phase pressure of at least 30 mTorr, transforming the etching gas into a plasma, and stopping the etching phase. |
| US09997362B2 |
Cobalt CVD
A cobalt deposition process, including: volatilizing a cobalt precursor selected from among CCTBA, CCTMSA, and CCBTMSA, to form a precursor vapor; and contacting the precursor vapor with a substrate under vapor deposition conditions effective for depositing on the substrate (i) high purity, low resistivity cobalt or (ii) cobalt that is annealable by thermal annealing to form high purity, low resistivity cobalt. Such cobalt deposition process can be used to manufacture product articles in which the deposited cobalt forms an electrode, capping layer, encapsulating layer, diffusion layer, or seed for electroplating of metal thereon, e.g., a semiconductor device, flat-panel display, or solar panel. |
| US09997361B2 |
Gate stack formed with interrupted deposition processes and laser annealing
Semiconductor structures and methods of fabricating the same using interrupted deposition processes and multiple laser anneals are provided. The structure includes a high-k gate stack with a high-k bilayer or nanolaminate where a bottom portion of the bilayer is crystallized while a top portion of the bilayer is amorphous. |
| US09997359B2 |
Semiconductor device with rear-side insert structure
A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor body and a rear side insertion structure. The semiconductor body has a first surface at a front side and a second surface parallel to the first surface at a rear side, an active area and an edge termination area separating the active area from an outer surface of the semiconductor body. The outer surface connects the first and second surfaces, and element structures in the active area are predominantly formed closer to the first surface than to the second surface. The rear side insertion structure extends from the second surface into the semiconductor body in the edge termination area. |
| US09997357B2 |
Capped ALD films for doping fin-shaped channel regions of 3-D IC transistors
Disclosed herein are methods of doping a fin-shaped channel region of a partially fabricated 3-D transistor on a semiconductor substrate. The methods may include forming a multi-layer dopant-containing film on the substrate, forming a capping film comprising a silicon carbide material, a silicon nitride material, a silicon carbonitride material, or a combination thereof, the capping film located such that the multi-layer dopant-containing film is located in between the substrate and the capping film, and driving dopant from the dopant-containing film into the fin-shaped channel region. Multiple dopant-containing layers of the film may be formed by an atomic layer deposition process which includes adsorbing a dopant-containing film precursor such that it forms an adsorption-limited layer on the substrate and reacting adsorbed dopant-containing film precursor. Also disclosed herein are multi-station substrate processing apparatuses for doping the fin-shaped channel regions of partially fabricated 3-D transistors. |
| US09997355B1 |
Method for preparing a quantum dot mixture with a bimodal size distribution
A method for preparing a quantum dot mixture with a bimodal size distribution includes steps of: a) preparing a mixed cationic precursor solution, b) preparing a first anionic precursor solution and a second anionic precursor solution, c) conducting a nucleation reaction at a nucleation temperature for a predetermined nucleation time, and d) conducting a crystallite growth reaction at a crystallite growth temperature for a predetermined crystallite growth time. |
| US09997352B2 |
Polysilicon residue removal in nanosheet MOSFETs
A method is presented for forming a semiconductor device. The method includes depositing a sacrificial layer on a fin structure formed on a substrate and then filled with polysilicon, etching a portion of the polysilicon material via a first etching process, and pre-cleaning the surface native oxide layer. The method further includes etching the remaining polysilicon material via a second etching process, and removing polysilicon etch residue formed adjacent the fin structure by a cleaning process. The pre-cleaning is performed by applying ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) or by applying buffered hydrofluoric acid (BHF). The first etching process is reactive ion etching (RIE) and the second etching process involves applying nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) and hydrogen gas (H2). |
| US09997350B2 |
Methods for depositing films with organoaminodisilane precursors
Described herein are precursors and methods for forming silicon-containing films. In one aspect, there is provided a precursor of Formula I: wherein R1 is selected from linear or branched C3 to C10 alkyl group, linear or branched C3 to C10 alkenyl group, linear or branched C3 to C10 alkynyl group, C1 to C6 dialkylamino group, electron withdrawing group, and C6 to C10 aryl group; R2 is selected from hydrogen, linear or branched C1 to C10 alkyl group, linear or branched C3 to C6 alkenyl group, linear or branched C3 to C6 alkynyl group, C1 to C6 dialkylamino group, C6 to C10 aryl group, linear or branched C1 to C6 fluorinated alkyl group, electron withdrawing group, and C4 to C10 aryl group; optionally wherein R1 and R2 are linked together to form ring selected from substituted or unsubstituted aromatic ring or substituted or unsubstituted aliphatic ring; and n=1 or 2. |
| US09997346B1 |
Electron spectrometer
A charged particle spectrometer of hemispherical analyzer type for analyzing a particle emitting sample, the spectrometer comprising at least a first mechanism configured to move at least a part of the lens with respect to the axis between the sample spot and the analyzer entrance in a coordinate direction synchronously with a deflection of the particle beam. |
| US09997342B2 |
Method and device for mass spectrometric analysis of biomolecules using charge transfer dissociation (CTD)
Provided herein are devices, systems, and methods of CTD mass spectrometry analysis of biomolecules. |
| US09997339B2 |
Sputtering apparatus and substrate processing apparatus
A sputtering apparatus includes a shutter unit, a plurality of target holders, and a substrate holder which can rotate about an axis perpendicular to a surface on which a substrate is held. The shutter unit includes a first shutter having first and second apertures and a second shutter having third and fourth apertures. The plurality of target holders are arranged on a first virtual circle centered on the axis, with the arrangement intervals between the plurality of target holders on the first virtual circle including at least two types of arrangement intervals. |
| US09997335B2 |
Plasma source enhanced with booster chamber and low cost plasma strength sensor
A method to improve plasma discharge efficiency by attaching one or more booster chambers to the main discharge chamber is disclosed here. The booster chamber functions as a plasma discharge amplification device for the main discharge chamber. It improves plasma density significantly, especially at pressure below 50 mTorr. Compared with traditional inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source, the strength of the plasma source enhanced with booster chamber has been improved several folds at low pressure conditions. Booster chamber can also be used as a convenient high speed plasma etching and deposition processing chamber for small samples. A method to gauge plasma strength by measuring plasma emission intensity has also been disclosed in this application. |
| US09997334B1 |
Seedless particles with carbon allotropes
Carbon materials having carbon aggregates, where the aggregates include carbon nanoparticles and no seed particles, are disclosed. In various embodiments, the nanoparticles include graphene, optionally with multi-walled spherical fullerenes and/or another carbon allotrope. In various embodiments, the nanoparticles and aggregates have different combinations of: a Raman spectrum with a 2D-mode peak and a G-mode peak, and a 2D/G intensity ratio greater than 0.5, a low concentration of elemental impurities, a high Brunauer-Emmett and Teller (BET) surface area, a large particle size, and/or a high electrical conductivity. Methods are provided to produce the carbon materials. |
| US09997332B2 |
Plasma processing apparatus and plasma processing method
A plasma processing apparatus includes: an evacuable processing chamber including a dielectric window; a substrate supporting unit, provided in the processing chamber, for mounting thereon a target substrate; a processing gas supply unit for supplying a desired processing gas to the processing chamber to perform a plasma process on the target substrate; a first RF antenna, provided on the dielectric window, for generating a plasma by an inductive coupling in the processing chamber; and a first RF power supply unit for supplying an RF power to the first RF antenna. The first RF antenna includes a primary coil provided on or above the dielectric window and electrically connected to the first RF power supply unit; and a secondary coil provided such that the coils are coupled with each other by an electromagnetic induction therebetween while being arranged closer to a bottom surface of the dielectric window than the primary coil. |
| US09997329B2 |
Evaluation method, correction method, recording medium and electron beam lithography system
An evaluation method according to an embodiment is to evaluate a precision of an aperture formed with multiple openings, and includes steps of forming a first evaluation pattern based on evaluation data using multiple electron beams generated by electron beam that has passed through the aperture, dividing the aperture into multiple regions, each of the regions including the multiple openings and defining the multiple divided regions, forming a second evaluation pattern based on evaluation data using the electron beam that has passed through a first divided region among the multiple divided regions, comparing the first evaluation pattern with the second evaluation pattern, and evaluating the precision of the aperture based on the comparison result between the first evaluation pattern and the second evaluation pattern. |
| US09997326B2 |
Charged particle beam device
In a charged particle beam device including an objective lens that focuses a charged particle beam; a first deflector that deflects the charged particle beam to emit the charged particle beam to a sample from a direction different from an ideal optical axis of the objective lens; and a second deflector that deflects a charged particle emitted from the sample, a charged particle focusing lens to focus the charged particle emitted from the sample is disposed between the sample and the second deflector and strengths of the objective lens and the charged particle focusing lens are controlled, according to deflection conditions of the first deflector. |
| US09997325B2 |
Electron beam exciter for use in chemical analysis in processing systems
The present invention is directed to a gas line electron beam exciter, gas line electron beam excitation system and method for exciting a gas using an electron beam exciter. The electron beam exciter generally comprises a variable density electron source for generating a cloud of electrons in an electron chamber and a variable energy electron extractor for accelerating electrons from the electron chamber as an electron beam and into an effluent stream for fluorescing species in the effluent. The electron density of the electron beam is variably controlled by adjusting the excitation power applied to the variable density electron source. The electrons in the electron chamber reside at a reference electrical potential of the chamber, typically near ground electrical potential. The electron energy of the electron beam is variably controlled by adjusting an electrical potential across the variable energy electron extractor, which energizes the electrons through an extraction hole of the chamber and toward the extractor. The greater the difference in the electrical potential between the electron extractor and the electron source, the higher the energy imparted to the electrons in the electron beam. The excitation power applied to the electron source can be adjusted independently from the electron energy of the electron beam, thereby altering the electron density of the electron beam without changing the energy level of the electrons of the electron beam. |
| US09997320B2 |
Method of manufacturing a circuit breaker and method of manufacturing a battery pack including the circuit breaker
The circuit breaker is fabricated by an assembly step that makes a circuit breaker assembly with a moving contact metal plate, stationary contact metal plate, and bimetallic strip disposed in prescribed locations in an external case; and an anneal step that introduces the circuit breaker assembly made in the assembly step into an anneal oven, heats the circuit breaker assembly in the anneal oven and then cools it to anneal both the moving contact metal plate and the bimetallic strip and produce a heat-treated circuit breaker. |
| US09997317B2 |
Isolated control circuit and driver for micro-electromechanical system switch
A switching system includes a control circuit that receives On-Off signals indicative of a desired operating state of a switch. The control circuit includes an oscillator that generates a first electrical pulse responsive having a first signal characteristic or a second signal characteristic that is determined by the received On-Off signal, which may be related to a frequency or duty cycle of the pulse. A pulse transformer connected to the oscillator receives the first electrical pulse and outputs a second electrical pulse having the same one of the first signal characteristic and the second signal characteristic as the first electrical pulse. A pulse detection circuit in the control circuit receives the second electrical pulse, determines whether the second electrical pulse has the first signal characteristic or the second signal characteristic, and controls transmission of power and control signals to the switch based on this determination. |
| US09997310B2 |
Switch device
A subassembly includes an intermediate knob serving as a first knob rotatably fitted to and supported by a middle serving as a fixing portion, a first spring and a first ball for giving a detent feeling upon a rotary movement between the middle serving as the fixing portion and the intermediate knob, a distal end knob serving as a second knob rotatably fitted to and supported by the middle serving as the fixing portion, and a second spring and a second ball for giving a detent feeling upon a rotary movement between the middle serving as the fixing portion and the distal end knob. In such a subassembly, the intermediate knob, the first spring and the first ball, and the distal end knob, the second spring and the second ball are integrally assembled as a subassembly. |
| US09997309B2 |
Touch control keyboard
A touch control keyboard includes a plurality of keycaps, a plurality of touch key parts, a plurality pairs of conductive distributions, a first circuit board, and a second circuit board. An upper part of each keycap includes a touch key part having a coupling capacitor. The touch key parts and the pair of conductive distributions and the first circuit board are electrically connected. The first circuit board detects the coupling capacitors of the touch key parts by using the pair of conductive distributions to generate a first key signal. The second circuit board detects keystrokes of the keycaps to generate a second key signal. |
| US09997307B2 |
Button guide structure
Provided is a button guide structure that makes it possible to achieve the reduction in cost and man-hour and the improvement in quality. In a button guide structure in which a push button 23 is provided on a front panel 11 through a guide unit in a slidable manner, the push button 23 operating a switch, the front panel 11 configuring a front surface of an electronic apparatus or the like, the front panel 11 includes a tubular portion 11b into which a part of the push button 23 is inserted, the push button 23 includes: a button main body portion 23a that is inserted into the tubular portion 11b; and an outer tubular portion 23b that is provided so as to surround the button main body portion 23a and that encloses the tubular portion 11b when the button main body portion 23a has been inserted into the tubular portion 11b, and the guide unit constituted by a rib 11k and a slit 23k is provided on an outer surface 11w of the tubular portion 11b and the outer tubular portion 23b. |
| US09997306B2 |
Ultra low travel keyboard
A keyboard or keyboard key that has a force sensor that measures the force imparted to the key when a user presses the key or rests a finger on a key. Key embodiments may also include an actuator that excites the in order to provide feedback to the user in accordance with various feedback methods disclosed herein. |
| US09997303B2 |
Circuit breaker terminal cover and strip of terminal covers
An exemplary circuit breaker terminal cover includes a cover and at least one attachment portion. The cover has first and second side walls and a vented surface extending between the first and second side walls, the first and second side walls extending to form a wire opening. The at least one attachment portion is configured to hold the terminal cover in place and to removably engage at least one of an opening, a side, an edge, a protrusion, a fastener, a wire, and a handle.An exemplary strip of circuit breaker terminal covers includes a plurality of terminal covers and at least one frangible connection joining two adjacent terminal covers of the plurality of terminal covers. |
| US09997298B2 |
Conductive material formulation and use thereof
The invention pertains to a conductive material formulation comprising: (a) a conductive polymer material; and (b) an insulation material, wherein the conductive polymer material is derived from a conductive polymer and a polyanion and has a weight average molecular weight ranging from 3,000 to 30,000; and wherein the (b) insulation material is present in an amount of 0.01 part to 200 parts by weight based on 100 parts by weight of the (a) conductive polymer material. The conductive material formulation according to the invention is useful for the preparation of solid capacitors. |
| US09997292B2 |
Wireless power transmitter and wireless power receiver
A wireless power receiver for wirelessly receiving power from a wireless power transmitter according to the embodiment includes a reception coil part resonance-coupled with the wireless power transmitter to receive the power, and an eddy current prevention part disposed at one side of the reception coil part to prevent an eddy current from being generated from the wireless power receiver caused by a magnetic field generated from the reception coil part. |
| US09997290B2 |
Variable inductor and wireless communication device including variable device for conversion of a baseband signal to a radio frequency (RF) range
Embodiments of a variable inductor and a communication device are generally described herein. The variable inductor may comprise a signal wire and a control wire to receive a direct current (DC) control current. The variable inductor may further comprise a magnetic material integrated with the signal wire and the control wire. When a DC control current applied to the control wires takes a first current value, an inductance between an input node and an output node on the signal wire may take a first inductance value. When the DC control current takes a second current value, the inductance between the input node and the output node may take a second inductance value. |
| US09997289B2 |
Magnetic material and device
Provided is a magnetic material including a plurality of flat particles containing a magnetic metal, and a matrix phase disposed around the flat particles and having higher electrical resistance than the flat particles. In a cross-section of the magnetic material, the aspect ratio of the flat particles is 10 or higher. If the major axis of one of the flat particles is designated as L and the length of a straight line connecting two endpoints of the flat particle is designated as W, the proportion of the area surrounded by the outer peripheries of parts in which flat particles satisfying the relationship: W ≤0.95×L are continuously laminated, is 10% or more of the cross-section. |
| US09997280B2 |
Heat-resistant wire and heat-resistant cable
A heat-resistant wire includes a conductor, and an insulation including not less than two layers and covering the conductor. An outermost layer of the insulation includes a flame-retardant resin composition having a melting point of not less than 200° C. and is cross-linked by exposure to ionizing radiation, the flame-retardant resin composition including a polyolefin grafted with polyamide as a base polymer. |
| US09997279B2 |
Electric wire and method for producing the same, and multi-core cable and method for producing the same
The electric wire according to one aspect of the present invention is an electric wire comprising an insulated electric wire and one or more coating layers covering the insulated electric wire, wherein at least one layer of the one or more coating layers is formed from a resin composition containing a thermoplastic polyurethane elastomer and an allophanate crosslinking agent. The electric wire having such a characteristic feature is excellent in abrasion resistance and heat resistance and can be produced at low costs. |
| US09997273B2 |
Enzymatically-degummed oil and uses thereof
An electrical device containing an enzymatically-degummed vegetable oil is disclosed. Also disclosed are methods for insulating and cooling a transformer using enzymatically-degummed vegetable oils, and methods for adding an enzymatically-degummed vegetable oil to an enclosure of an electrical device. Further disclosed are processes for making dielectric fluids using enzyme-degumming of vegetable oils or using enzyme-degummed vegetable oils as the starting material for the process. |
| US09997267B2 |
Nuclear reactor target assemblies, nuclear reactor configurations, and methods for producing isotopes, modifying materials within target material, and/or characterizing material within a target material
Target assemblies are provided that can include a uranium-comprising annulus. The assemblies can include target material consisting essentially of non-uranium material within the volume of the annulus. Reactors are disclosed that can include one or more discrete zones configured to receive target material. At least one uranium-comprising annulus can be within one or more of the zones. Methods for producing isotopes within target material are also disclosed, with the methods including providing neutrons to target material within a uranium-comprising annulus. Methods for modifying materials within target material are disclosed as well as are methods for characterizing material within a target material. |
| US09997260B2 |
Retrieval of similar patient cases based on disease probability vectors
A method of retrieving similar patient cases from a medical database includes matching a current patient case against a plurality of clinical profiles resulting in a set of matching clinical profiles. The method further includes determining a degree of membership of the current patient case in each clinical profile from the set of matching clinical profiles based upon a degree of match between the current patient case and the clinical profile. For at least one clinical profile from the set of matching clinical profiles, the method includes retrieving those similar patient cases from the medical database that have a substantially corresponding degree of membership as the current patient case. |
| US09997258B2 |
Using non-volatile memory bad blocks
A system for using bad blocks in a memory system is proposed. The system includes accessing an identification of a plurality of bad blocks and corresponding error codes which, for example, were generated during a manufacturing test and stored on the memory integrated circuit. The system determines which blocks of the plurality of bad blocks to test for being still usable and which blocks of the plurality of bad blocks not to test for being still usable based on corresponding error codes. For each bad block that should be tested, a test from a plurality of tests is chosen based on the corresponding error code in order to determine if the bad block is still usable. Those blocks determined to be still usable are subsequently used to store non-mission critical information. |
| US09997256B2 |
Semiconductor memory devices and methods of testing open failures thereof
Semiconductor memory devices are provided. The semiconductor memory device includes an input/output (I/O) drive controller, a data I/O unit and a data transmitter. The input/output (I/O) drive controller generates drive control signals and an input control signal for driving first and second global I/O lines in a first test mode or a second test mode. The data I/O unit drives the first global I/O line in response to an input data when a write operation is executed in the first test mode. The data transmitter transfers the data on the first global I/O line onto first and second local I/O lines to store the data on the first global I/O line in a memory cell array portion when the write operation is executed in the first test mode. Related methods are also provided. |
| US09997255B2 |
Testing retention mode of an SRAM array
An embodiment of the invention discloses a method for testing the retention mode of an array of SRAM cells. A data pattern is written to the array. After the data pattern is written, a retention circuit is enabled for a period of time that drops the voltage on a supply line. During this period of time, a first current is drawn from the supply line by sources internal (i.e. leakage current) to the array. Also during this time period, current is drawn from the supply line by a discharge circuit. The second current is provided to shorten the time required to test the retention mode of the array. After the period of time has expired, the retention mode and the discharge circuit are disabled and the data pattern is read from the array and compared to the data pattern written to the array. |
| US09997252B2 |
High speed and low power sense amplifier
An improved sensing circuit is disclosed that utilizes a bit line in an unused memory array to provide reference values to compare against selected cells in another memory array. A circuit that can perform a self-test for identifying bit lines with leakage currents about an acceptable threshold also is disclosed. |
| US09997251B2 |
Medium defect management method for storage systems requiring an integrated controller
A method of operating a storage controller is provided. The method includes receiving host data for storage within a storage system, the storage system configured as a plurality of sequentially numbered data blocks, each comprising a plurality of pages, storing the host data in a data buffer, and organizing the host data into storage data pages. The method also includes sequentially writing the storage data into page stripes, reading the storage data from the pages, and comparing the read storage data with the host data stored in the data buffer. The method further includes for each page of storage data that fails the comparison, rewriting the storage data for that page into a different page, and when at least some of the storage data within the storage system passes the comparison, transmitting a signal to the host. |
| US09997249B2 |
Data storage device and flash memory voltage protection method thereof
A data storage device includes a flash memory, a voltage detection device, and a controller. The flash memory is arranged to store data. The voltage detection device is arranged to detect a supply voltage received by the data storage device. The controller is configured to receive write commands from a host, and perform a prohibition mode when the supply voltage is outside a predetermined range, wherein the write command is arranged to enable the controller to write the flash memory, and the controller is further configured to disable all of the write commands received from the host in the prohibition mode. |
| US09997245B1 |
Method and apparatus for TCAM based look-up
Aspects of the disclosure provide an electronic device that includes an exact match engine, a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM) engine, a search key generator and an output module. The exact match engine is configured to store a first set of entries. The TCAM engine is configured to store a second set of entries including at least some entries that are different from entries of the first set of entries. The search key generator is configured to generate a search key and provide the search key to the exact match engine and to the TCAM engine. The output module is configured to select one of a first output from the exact match engine and a second output from the TCAM engine in response to a signal that indicates whether the search key exactly matches one of the first set of entries. |
| US09997241B2 |
High voltage switching circuitry for a cross-point array
A system includes a cross-point memory array and a decoder circuit coupled to the cross-point memory array. The decoder circuit includes a predecoder having predecode logic to generate a control signal and a level shifter circuit to generate a voltage signal. The decoder circuit further includes a post-decoder coupled to the predecoder, the post-decoder including a first stage and a second stage coupled to the first stage, the control signal to control the first stage and the second stage to route the voltage signal through the first stage and the second stage to a selected conductive array line of a plurality of conductive array lines coupled to a memory array. |
| US09997239B1 |
Word line overdrive in memory and method therefor
Higher word line voltages facilitate write operations in spin-torque magnetic memory devices, but overdriving the gate of a selection transistor with such higher word line voltages can damage the selection transistor if the gate-to-source voltage for the selection transistor is too high. Therefore in order to support the word line voltage needed on the gate of the select transistor for an up-current write operation without exceeding limits on the gate-to-source voltage for the select transistor, the gate of the selection transistor can be driven in a two-step process. The gate of the selection transistor is first driven to a lower voltage within the limits of the gate-to-source voltage for the transistor when the source of the transistor is grounded or at a voltage near ground. A voltage is then applied across the memory cell, which results in the source of the selection transistor being raised above its initial ground or near-ground state. After the source of the selection transistor has been raised, the gate voltage of the selection transistor can also be raised at least as much as the source of the selection transistor has been elevated without violating the limits on the gate-to-source voltage for the selection transistor. |
| US09997235B2 |
Semiconductor memory with respective power voltages for plurality of memory cells
A device is disclosed that includes first memory cells, second memory cells, a first conductive line and a second conductive line. The first conductive line is electrically disconnected from the second conductive line. The first conductive line receives a first power voltage for the plurality of first memory cells. The second conductive line receives a second power voltage that is independent from the first power voltage, for the plurality of second memory cells. |
| US09997230B1 |
Reference voltage pre-processing circuit and reference voltage pre-processing method for a reference voltage buffer
Embodiments of the invention relate to a reference voltage pre-processing circuit and method for a reference voltage buffer. The embodiments include a filter to control/reduce the noise and/or interference attached to a reference voltage to be provided to a reference voltage buffer by passing the reference voltage via two transistor in series. Furthermore, the embodiments include an auxiliary voltage circuit which interfaces the filter and the reference voltage buffer to avoid that the reference voltage buffer get an invalid reference voltage. |
| US09997229B2 |
Address decoder and active control circuit and semiconductor memory including the same
An address decoder includes decoding logic configured to generate a decoding address by decoding one of a first die ID having a value according to a first operation mode, a second die ID having a value according to a second operation mode, and a bank address according to a signal having different values in the first operation mode and the second operation mode. |
| US09997228B2 |
Refresh control device with plurality of oscillator circuits
A refresh control device, and a memory device may be provided. The latch controller may include a first oscillator configured to generate a first oscillation signal, and a second oscillator configured to generate a second oscillation signal. The latch controller may be configured to receive a precharge signal and prevent the second oscillation signal from being synchronized with the precharge signal. |
| US09997227B2 |
Non-volatile ferroelectric logic with granular power-gating
Described is an apparatus which comprises: a first power domain having a first inverter to be powered by a first switchable positive supply and a first switchable negative supply; and a second power domain having a second inverter including p-type and n-type FE-FETs, the second inverter having an input coupled to an output of the first inverter. |
| US09997221B2 |
Delay locked loop circuit including an additive delay in a command path
An operation control method of a semiconductor memory device includes executing a Delay Locked Loop (DLL) locking in response to a DLL reset signal and measuring a loop delay of a DLL. The operation control method further includes storing measured loop delay information and DLL locking information; and performing a delay control of a command path using the stored loop delay information and DLL locking information independent of the DLL, during a latency control operation. |
| US09997220B2 |
Apparatuses and methods for adjusting delay of command signal path
Apparatuses and methods related to adjusting a delay of a command signal path are disclosed. An example apparatus includes: a timing circuit that includes a divider circuit that receives a first clock signal having a first frequency and provides a complementary pair of second and third clock signals having a second frequency that is half the first frequency; a first delay circuit that receives the second clock signal and provides a delayed second clock signal responsive to the second clock signal; and a second delay circuit that receives the third clock signal and provides a delayed third clock signal responsive to the third clock signal. The timing circuit receives a first signal, latches the first signal responsive to the delayed second clock signal to provide a second signal and latches the second signal responsive to either the second clock signal or the third clock signal responsive to latency information. |
| US09997216B2 |
Nonvolatile random access memory including control circuit configured to receive commands at high and low edges of one clock cycle
A nonvolatile random access memory including a memory cell array including banks, each bank including rows; an address latch circuit; and a control circuit receiving a first set of signals including a precharge command and a first row address, and a second set of signals including an active command and a second row address. The control circuit executes a first operation in which one of the banks is deactivated when the first set of signals is loaded, executes a second operation in which the first row address is loaded when the first set of signals is loaded, and executes a third operation in which at least one of the rows in the bank is selected and activated based on the second row address when the second set of signals is loaded after the first set of signals. |
| US09997215B2 |
Semiconductor memory device and operating method thereof
In an embodiment, a semiconductor memory device may include a memory cell array, a plurality of page buffers, and a control logic. The memory cell array may include a plurality of memory cells. The plurality of page buffers may be coupled to a plurality of bit lines of the memory cell array, respectively. The control logic may control the plurality of page buffers to perform a read operation on the memory cell array. Each of the plurality of page buffers may perform data sensing by changing a voltage of a page buffer sensing signal after an internal node is precharged. |
| US09997214B1 |
LevelShifter-less output buffer with hybrid driver for high speed and low supply memory applications
Disclosed is an architecture for an output driver that does not employ level shifters in the high speed data path. Since the proposed architecture is free from level shifters in the high speed data path, it provides better performance across PVT corners. The disclosed output driver usages a hybrid pullup driver which makes it compatible for the wide range of DRAM supply range. This approach allows for significant savings for electronic design area and dynamic power. |
| US09997206B2 |
Disc drive actuator assembly with bearing cooling
Various aspects of the present disclosure are directed toward a disc drive actuator assembly including an e-block, a plurality of bearings, and one or more heat transfer components. The heat transfer component(s) operates to conductively draw heat from the plurality of bearings through the e-block, and convectively dissipate the heat into an atmosphere in contact therewith. The heat transfer component(s) mitigates temperature rise of the bearings during operation of a disc drive, thereby mitigating bearing lubricant outgassing from within the bearings. |
| US09997205B2 |
Disc drive
A disc drive (digital book data playback apparatus) includes a cabinet, a disc insertion part through which a digital book data disc is inserted into the cabinet, the disc insertion part being provided in a surface of the cabinet, and a guide groove formed in a surface of the cabinet, the guide groove having a starting end portion formed at an opening end and a terminating end portion continued to the disc insertion part, the guide groove being capable of receiving an outer peripheral edge of the digital book data disc to be inserted into the disc insertion part until the outer peripheral edge reaches a necessary depth. |
| US09997202B2 |
Recording medium, playback method, and playback device
A playback method is provided for reading out and playing streams from a recording medium. Recorded in the recording medium are a stream file including a first luminance video expressed by luminance of a first dynamic range, and a second luminance video expressed by luminance of a second dynamic range that is broader than the first dynamic range; a playlist file for controlling playback of the stream file; and a number of elementary streams. The playback method includes when playing the first luminance video, reading out any one of the elementary streams listed in the first combination information of the playlist file, and playing at the same time with the first luminance video; and when playing the second luminance video, reading out any one of the elementary streams listed in the second combination information of the playlist file, and playing at the same time with the second luminance video. |
| US09997201B2 |
Method and apparatus for video compression of multiple instances using index frames
The system provides a method and apparatus for writing a unique copy of data associated with each of a plurality of individual users, without the need for storing duplicate copies of the entire data file. The system provides for creating an unusable copy of a portion of the data that is to be shared by all users of the complete data. The system will store and optionally encrypt and/or watermark a unique copy of the remainder portion of the data for each unique user. When accessed from storage, the system will combine the shared portion with the unique remainder to reconstitute the entire file for access by the user. Deleting the unique remainder associated with a particular user makes all of the data useless to that user. In one embodiment, the system first compresses the entire data file using index frames and delta. |
| US09997198B2 |
Automatic generation of video from structured content
Apparatus for generation of playable media from structured data, comprises a structured data reading unit for reading in of content of a first structure, a transformation unit for transforming said content into a second structure, said transformation comprising incorporating media play instructions, and a rendering unit for rendering content from the second structure using said media play instructions to generate playable media from the content. |
| US09997195B2 |
Playlist programming
Systems, device and techniques are disclosed for receiving a request from a user to add a media item to a playlist at a certain playlist position where the media items in the playlist are provided to other users in a media group. Based on a determination that the requesting user has rights to the requested media item, the requested media item may be added to the playlist at the position. When the playlist reaches the position, the user that added the media item to the playlist may be provided with a first version of the media item and the other users in the group may be provided with a second version of the media item. If the user that requested the item to be added to the playlist is determined not to have rights to the media item, the item is added to a position different than the requested position. |
| US09997192B1 |
Overlap detection for magnetic disks
Embodiments described herein provide an apparatus that is operable with a disk drive. The apparatus includes a memory device operable to store a plurality of bit sets. Each bit set identifies a track and a sector of the disk drive and a number of times that the track of the disk drive has been written. A controller of the disk drive is operable to increment the number when the track is written. Each bit set comprises a number of bits that is established according to track location of the disk drive. |
| US09997189B2 |
Three dimensional electric field data storage device utilizing shockwaves and a light source
A system includes a data storage medium and a shockwave generator. The data storage medium includes cells and a plurality of layers. Each cell is configured to store information therein. At least two cells are arranged in a horizontal plane within a same layer of the plurality of layers of the data storage medium and at least two cells are arranged in a vertical plane in different layers of the plurality of layers of the data storage medium. The shockwave generator is configured to generate a shockwave signal that travels through a layer of the plurality of layers of the data storage medium. A target cell within the layer stores information responsive to a beam emitted from an emitter targeting the target cell as the shockwave signal is passing through the target cell. The target cell maintains the information after the shockwave signal exits through the target cell. |
| US09997185B1 |
Data storage device employing upsampling to compensate for high frequency repeatable runout
A data storage device comprising a head actuated over a disk comprising a plurality of tracks. The head is positioned over a target track, and a sampled position error signal (PES) is generated representing a position of the head relative to the target track. The sampled PES is filtered with a servo compensator to generate a sampled control signal, and the sampled control signal is upsampled to generate an upsampled control signal. The sampled PES is upsampled to generate an upsampled PES, and the upsampled PES is processed to generate compensation values. The upsampled control signal is combined with the compensation values to generate a compensated control signal, and the position of the head over the target track is adjusted based on the compensated control signal. |
| US09997184B1 |
Hybrid servo pattern configurations for magnetic tape
A tape drive-implemented method, according to one embodiment, includes: determining a servo band configuration of servo bands on a magnetic tape, using servo readers on a magnetic tape head to read one or more of the servo bands based on the determined servo band configuration, and using information read from the one or more of the servo bands to position the magnetic tape head relative to the magnetic tape. An array of data transducers is positioned along the magnetic tape head, the array extending perpendicular to a direction of travel of the magnetic tape. Moreover, a group of the servo readers is positioned at each end of the array of data transducers, and a distance between each of the immediately adjacent servo readers in each of the groups of servo readers is less than or equal to one third of a prespecified width of each of the servo bands. |
| US09997183B2 |
Two-motor co-located gimbal-based dual stage actuation disk drive suspensions with motor stiffeners
Various embodiments concern a dual stage actuation flexure. The dual stage actuation flexure comprises a flexure having a gimbal. The gimbal comprising a pair of spring arms, a tongue between the spring arms, and a pair of linkages respectively connecting the pair of spring arms to the tongue. The dual stage actuation flexure further comprises a pair of motors mounted on the gimbal and a pair of stiffeners respectively mounted on the motors. The dual stage actuation flexure further comprises a slider mounting. Electrical activation of the motors bends the pair of linkages to move the slider mounting about a tracking axis while the stiffeners limit the degree of bending of the motors during the electrical activation. |
| US09997182B1 |
Data storage device employing balanced current drive to unload multiple voice coil motors
A data storage device is disclosed comprising a first voice coil motor (VCM) comprising a first voice coil configured to actuate a first head over a first disk, a second VCM comprising a second voice coil configured to actuate a second head over a second disk, and a spindle motor configured to rotate the first and second disk, wherein during a power failure the first and second disks rotating causes the spindle motor to generate a back electromotive force (BEMF) voltage. During the power failure the first and second VCMs are unloaded, wherein during a first interval the first voice coil is connected to the BEMF voltage and the second voice coil is disconnected from the BEMF voltage, and during a second interval the second voice coil is connected to the BEMF voltage and the first voice coil is disconnected from the BEMF voltage. |
| US09997179B2 |
Storage element, storage apparatus, and magnetic head
A storage element is provided. The storage element includes a memory layer; a fixed magnetization layer; an intermediate layer including a non-magnetic material; wherein the intermediate layer is provided between the memory layer and the fixed magnetization layer; wherein the fixed magnetization layer includes at least a first magnetic layer, a second magnetic layer, and a non-magnetic layer, and wherein the first magnetic layer includes a CoFeB composition. A memory apparatus and a magnetic head are also provided. |
| US09997178B1 |
Thermal assisted magnetic recording head having plasmon generator in which dielectric layer is surrounded by metal layer
A thermally assisted magnetic recording head includes: a main pole that has a main pole end face at an air bearing surface opposing a magnetic recording medium and emits magnetic flux from the main pole end face; a waveguide that propagates laser light as propagation light and has a first waveguide section provided with an incidence end face on which the laser light is incident, a second waveguide section provided with a waveguide end face positioned close to the main pole end face on the air bearing surface, and a third waveguide section that connects the first waveguide section to the second waveguide section; a metal layer surrounds at least a portion of the first waveguide section, the entire circumference of the second waveguide section and at least a portion of the third waveguide section. |
| US09997175B1 |
Electric arm lifting and turntable's auto-stop assembly of record player
An electric arm lifting and turntable's auto-stop assembly of a record player is revealed. A record player is disposed with a power-driven turntable, a rotatable and movable arm disposed on one side of the turntable, a lift mechanism used for pushing against and moving the arm upward, and a sensor. The arm is moveable over the turntable. The sensor is arranged at an arm rotating shaft of the arm and used for sending a signal while detecting that the arm is moved to a lift point over the turntable. The lift mechanism is activated to move the arm upward and the turntable is stopped simultaneously for protecting a needle on the arm while the sensor detects that the arm has been moved from the turntable to the lift point. |
| US09997172B2 |
Voice activity detection (VAD) for a coded speech bitstream without decoding
A system, method and computer program product are described for voice activity detection (VAD) within a digitally encoded bitstream. A parameter extraction module is configured to extract parameters from a sequence of coded frames from a digitally encoded bitstream containing speech. A VAD classifier is configured to operate with input of the digitally encoded bitstream to evaluate each coded frame based on bitstream coding parameter classification features to output a VAD decision indicative of whether or not speech is present in one or more of the coded frames. |
| US09997166B2 |
Method, terminal, system for audio encoding/decoding/codec
Audio encoding methods/terminals, audio decoding methods/terminals, and audio codec systems are provided. A plurality of audio signals that are continuous is obtained. it is determined whether each audio signal of the plurality of audio signals includes a designated signal type, according to an audio parameter of each audio signal. A marked audio encoding stream is obtained by performing a marking to each audio signal as having or not having the designated signal type. The marking is used, at a decoding terminal, to perform an enhancement-process to one or more audio signals having the designated signal type. The enhancement-process is not performed to audio signals that do not have the designated signal type. |
| US09997163B2 |
Apparatus and method realizing improved concepts for TCX LTP
An apparatus for decoding an encoded audio signal to obtain a reconstructed audio signal is provided. The apparatus includes a receiving interface, a delay buffer and a sample processor for processing the selected audio signal samples to obtain reconstructed audio signal samples of the reconstructed audio signal. The sample selector is configured to select, if a current frame is received by the receiving interface and if the current frame being received by the receiving interface is not corrupted, the plurality of selected audio signal samples from the audio signal samples being stored in the delay buffer depending on a pitch lag information being included by the current frame. |
| US09997161B2 |
Automatic speech recognition confidence classifier
The described technology provides normalization of speech recognition confidence classifier (CC) scores that maintains the accuracy of acceptance metrics. A speech recognition CC scores quantitatively represents the correctness of decoded utterances in a defined range (e.g., [0,1]). An operating threshold is associated with a confidence classifier, such that utterance recognitions having scores exceeding the operating threshold are deemed acceptable. However, when a speech recognition engine, an acoustic model, and/or other parameters are updated by the platform, the correct-accept (CA) versus false-accept (FA) profile can change such that the application software's operating threshold is no longer valid or as accurate. Normalizing of speech recognition CC scores to map to the same or better CA and/or FA profiles at the previously-set operating thresholds allows preset operating thresholds to remain valid and accurate, even after a speech recognition engine, acoustic model, and/or other parameters are changed. |
| US09997152B2 |
Sound generator for mounting on a vehicle to manipulate vehicle noise
A sound generator (100) mounts on a vehicle to manipulate vehicle noise originating from a vehicle operated by an internal combustion engine. The sound generator (100) includes a casing (110), a loudspeaker (120), and at least one pressure compensation valve (130). The loudspeaker (120) and the casing (110) together thereby enclose a volume (115). Further, the pressure compensation valve (130) couples the volume (115) enclosed by the loudspeaker (120) and the casing to an outside of the casing (110). The pressure compensation valve (130) thereby extends through a plane in which the loudspeaker (120) is located. A system (200) for manipulating sound waves propagating through exhaust systems of vehicles driven by an internal combustion engine uses the above sound generator (100). |
| US09997151B1 |
Multichannel acoustic echo cancellation for wireless applications
An acoustic echo cancellation (AEC) system that detects and compensates for differences in delay times between the AEC system and a set of wireless speakers. The filter coefficients used for AEC are adjusted based on the determined delay time to correct for frequency domain signal rotation. |
| US09997149B2 |
Adjustable guitar effects pedalboard
An adjustable guitar effects pedalboard for anchoring guitar effects pedals. More specifically, a pedalboard having at least two telescoping sections, wherein the pedalboard is configured to allow users to adjust the width of the pedalboard to fit their needs. The pedalboard can have an upper level and a lower, telescoping level, and the upper level and the lower, telescoping level may be curved and further contain a plurality of holes on which users can use cable ties to anchor their guitar effects pedals. The plurality of holes in each of the at least two telescoping sections may align with each other in various positions of expansion and contraction. |
| US09997136B2 |
Display circuit and driving method and display apparatus thereof
A display circuit and a driving method thereof and a display apparatus are provided. The display circuit comprises a pixel unit (11), a first gate driving unit (12) and a second gate driving unit (13); wherein the first gate driving unit (12) is configured to input a first gate driving signal to the pixel unit (11); the second gate driving unit (13) is configured to input a second gate driving signal to the pixel unit (11); and the pixel unit (11) is configured to perform threshold compensating and gray scale displaying simultaneously under the control of the first gate driving signal and the second gate driving signal. The apparatus and method is capable of reducing the complexity in design of the display circuit, which is advantageous for raising density of pixels of the display panel. The apparatus and method are applicable to manufacture a display. |
| US09997129B2 |
Circuit device, electro-optical device, and electronic apparatus
A circuit device includes a grayscale voltage generation circuit that generates a plurality of grayscale voltages, a data processing unit that performs data processing of first color component display data to third color component display data, and a drive unit that drives a display panel based on the first color component display data to the third color component display data that are subjected to the data processing and the plurality of grayscale voltages that are used in common for the first color component display data to the third color component display data. The data processing unit performs grayscale correction processing on at least one color component display data of the first color component display data to the third color component display data in a grayscale correction range. |
| US09997128B2 |
Display panel driving apparatus, a method of driving a display panel using the display panel driving apparatus and a display apparatus including the display panel driving apparatus
A display panel driving apparatus includes a data processor configured to receive N-th line data of image data. N is a natural number not less than 2. The data processor is further configured to perform a first line delay on the N-th line data to output (N−1)-th line data, to output (N−1)-th line substitution data which is obtained by N-th line substitution data, which is based on the N-th line data and the (N−1)-th line data, and to compensate the N-th line data based on the N-th line data and the (N−1)-th line substitution data to output compensation image data. The display panel driving apparatus further includes a data driver and a gate driver. |
| US09997126B2 |
Display device having improved electromagnetic interference characteristics
A display device includes a timing controller configured to receive an image data signal and a plurality of clock signals and to generate a scan clock signal and a plurality of data clock signals, a scan driver configured to receive the scan clock signal, and a data driver configured to receive the data clock signals. The clock signals include first to nth clock signals, and the data clock signals include first to nth data clock signals generated from the first to nth clock signals (n≥2), the first to nth clock signals having differing frequencies and the first to nth data clock signals having differing frequencies. Whenever a predetermined number of frame periods has elapsed, the timing controller halts transmission of one of the first to nth data clock signals to the data driver, and begins transmission of another one of the first to nth data clock signals thereto. |
| US09997123B2 |
Switching power supply circuit, liquid crystal driving device, and liquid crystal display device
A switching power supply circuit has: a switching output generator that generates an output voltage from an input voltage by using an output transistor; a switching controller that turns ON and OFF the output transistor so as to keep the output voltage, or a feedback voltage commensurate therewith, with a predetermined reference voltage; and a maximum duty controller that varies the maximum duty of the output transistor according to the reference voltage, the output voltage, or the feedback voltage. |
| US09997122B2 |
Image display device
Provided is an image display device equipped with a see-through display function allowing the background to be seen through.In a liquid crystal display device (100), a transparent plate (170) is attached such that the incidence angle of source light emitted by a backlight source (160) is Brewster's angle θb, and therefore, the transparent plate (170) reflects S-wave included in the source light, and allows P-wave included in ambient light incident from the back side to be transmitted therethrough and illuminate a liquid crystal panel (150). Thus, when the backlight source (160) is on, the viewer can see an image displayed on the background, whereas when the backlight source (160) is off, only the background can be seen. |
| US09997121B2 |
Display with physically modeled charge accumulation tracking
An electronic device may generate content that is to be displayed on a display. The display may have an array of liquid crystal display pixels for displaying image frames of the content. A charge accumulation tracker may analyze the image frames to determine when there is a risk of excess charge accumulation. The charge accumulation tracker may implement a physically derived circuit model of the pixels. A charge accumulation input response matrix and a charge accumulation state response matrix for the model may be stored in look-up table circuitry and used in computing a current charge accumulation state based on current pixel voltage information and previous state information. The impact of temperature, backlight illumination level, frame duration, and other factors may be taken into account in evaluating the current charge accumulation state. |
| US09997119B2 |
Buffer circuit, panel module, and display driving method
A buffer circuit, a display module, and a display driving method are disclosed. The buffer circuit comprises a positive polarity buffer, a negative polarity buffer. The positive polarity buffer receives a first supply voltage and a second supply voltage to output a positive reference voltage to a positive resistance string. The second supply voltage is less than the first supply voltage. The negative polarity buffer receives the second supply voltage and a third supply voltage to output a negative reference voltage to a negative resistance string. The third supply voltage is less than the second supply voltage. |
| US09997118B2 |
Redundant power/control system for electronic displays
A system for powering and controlling a backlit electronic display where redundancy is used to provide two independent paths from a pair of power sources to the backlight. Further, two independent paths are also used from a pair of power sources to the electronic display. If any one of the paths were to fail or begin to degrade in performance, the system contains monitoring devices which can direct another path to be used by the system. Two separate control circuits for the electronic may be used so that either one may be used to control the electronic display if one were to fail. Two separate temperature sensors and luminance sensors may also be used to increase the durability of the system. |
| US09997113B2 |
Display apparatus for controlling a light source luminance of each display area and method of driving the same
A display apparatus includes a display panel for displaying an image and that includes a plurality of display areas, a light source part for providing a light to the display panel, a luminance measurer for measuring a luminance of each display area of the display panel and outputting a panel luminance signal of each display area of the display panel, and a light source driver for driving the light source part based on the panel luminance signal to decrease the light source luminance signal of each display area of the display panel when the panel luminance signal of each display area of the display panel increases and to increase the light source luminance signal of each display area of the display panel when the panel luminance signal of each display area of the display panel decreases. |
| US09997112B2 |
Display device
Present invention is related to a display device and a driving method thereof. In particularly, the present invention is to provide a display device and a driving method thereof, in which a data driver driven at a low frequency which is capable of inverting a polarity of a data voltage in each frame. |
| US09997111B2 |
Circuit and method for generation of light emission control signal and pixel circuit driving method
The present disclosure discloses a circuit and method for generating a light emission control signal for an AMOLED pixel circuit having in-cell touch sensors, as well as a pixel circuit driving method. The circuit comprises a first transistor, a second transistor, a third transistor, a fourth transistor and a first capacitor. Under control of a control signal transferred by a first control line, a first clock signal, a second clock signal, a voltage of a first level, a voltage of a second level and a control signal transferred by a second control line, the circuit outputs the desired light emission control signal via a light emission control line. The light emission control signal may turn off the OLED in the pixel circuit during a touch sense phase such that an influence of the capacitance between the anode and cathode of the OLED on the touch sensor-to-ground capacitance is reduced. |
| US09997107B2 |
AMOLED displays with multiple readout circuits
The OLED voltage of a selected pixel is extracted from the pixel produced when the pixel is programmed so that the pixel current is a function of the OLED voltage. One method for extracting the OLED voltage is to first program the pixel in a way that the current is not a function of OLED voltage, and then in a way that the current is a function of OLED voltage. During the latter stage, the programming voltage is changed so that the pixel current is the same as the pixel current when the pixel was programmed in a way that the current was not a function of OLED voltage. The difference in the two programming voltages is then used to extract the OLED voltage. |
| US09997106B2 |
Pixel circuits for AMOLED displays
A system for controlling a display in which each pixel circuit comprises a light-emitting device, a drive transistor, a storage capacitor, a reference voltage source, and a programming voltage source. The storage capacitor stores a voltage equal to the difference between the reference voltage and the programming voltage, and a controller supplies a programming voltage that is a calibrated voltage for a known target current, reads the actual current passing through the drive transistor to a monitor line, turns off the light emitting device while modifying the calibrated voltage to make the current supplied through the drive transistor substantially the same as the target current, modifies the calibrated voltage to make the current supplied through the drive transistor substantially the same as the target current, and determines a current corresponding to the modified calibrated voltage based on predetermined current-voltage characteristics of the drive transistor. |
| US09997105B2 |
OLED pixel driving circuit and driving method and OLED display apparatus
An OLED pixel driving circuit, a driving method, and an OLED display apparatus are provided. The OLED pixel driving circuit comprises a reset module (1), a first capacitor (C1), a first transistor (T1), a charging control module (2), a driving transistor (M1) and a light-emitting control module (3); the reset module (1) is connected to two terminals of the first capacitor (C1) and configured to make the two terminals of the first capacitor (C1) have an initial voltage; a first electrode of the first transistor (T1) is connected to the charging control module (2), a second electrode thereof is connected to a first terminal of the first capacitor (C1), and a control electrode thereof is connected to a second terminal of the first capacitor (C1); the charging control module (2) is connected to the first transistor (T1) and a data line (Data); a control electrode of the driving transistor (M1) is connected to the second terminal of the first capacitor (C1), a first electrode thereof is connected to a high voltage terminal (VDD), and a second electrode thereof is connected to the light-emitting control module (3); and the light-emitting control module (3) is connected to the light-emitting device (4), wherein a difference value between a threshold voltage of the first transistor (T1) and a threshold voltage of the driving transistor (M1) is smaller than a preset value. The OLED pixel driving circuit can make the luminance of the OLED pixel within one frame picture maintain stable. |
| US09997104B2 |
Light-emitting diode displays with predictive luminance compensation
An electronic device may be provided with a display. A content generator may generate frames of image data to be displayed on the display. The display may have an array of pixels that emit light to display images. The pixels may contain light-emitting devices such as organic light-emitting diodes, quantum dot light-emitting diodes, and light-emitting diodes formed from discrete semiconductor dies. As a result of aging, the light producing capabilities of the light-emitting devices may degrade over time. The electronic device may have a temperature sensor that gathers temperature measurements. A pixel luminance degradation compensator may apply compensation factors to uncorrected pixel luminance values associated with the frames of image data to produce corresponding corrected pixel luminance values for the display. The compensation factors may be based on aging history information such as pixel luminance history and temperature measurements. |
| US09997102B2 |
Wirelessly powered display and system
A wirelessly powered display comprises a substrate, an antenna with multiple turns disposed on the substrate, an electronic circuit disposed on the substrate, and one or more pixels each having one or more inorganic light-emitting diodes disposed on the substrate. The electronic circuit is electrically connected to the one or more inorganic LEDs and the antenna, the antenna is responsive to electromagnetic energy to provide electrical power, and the electronic circuit includes a power converter that converts a signal with a relatively high current and low voltage to a signal with a relatively high voltage and low current. A wirelessly coupled display system includes a device including a wireless power transmitter that provides wireless power within a specified range and one or more wirelessly powered displays located within the range and responsive to the wireless power provided by the device to display an image. |
| US09997098B2 |
Organic light emitting diode display device and driving method of the same
An organic light emitting diode display device includes a display panel including pixels that each include an organic light emitting diode; a logo area detection unit detecting a logo area of the display panel; and a data signal modulation unit applying a first data signal to at least one pixel in the logo area during at least one frame and applying a second data signal to the at least one pixel in the logo area during another frame, wherein a first brightness corresponding to the first data signal is higher than a reference brightness of the at least one pixel in the logo area, a second brightness corresponding to the second data signal is lower than the reference brightness, and an average of the first brightness and the second brightness every frame is equal to the reference. |
| US09997097B2 |
Gamma reference voltage generating device and display with temperature compensation
Provided are a Gamma reference voltage generating device and a display. The Gamma reference voltage generating device comprises a Gamma reference voltage source and a Gamma reference voltage converting module, the Gamma reference voltage source being connected to the Gamma reference voltage converting module and configured to provide Gamma reference voltages, wherein the Gamma reference voltage generating device further comprises at least one temperature compensation circuit which is connected to the Gamma reference voltage converting module and configured to automatically adjust output voltages according to temperature change to compensate the Gamma reference voltages output by the Gamma reference voltage source through the Gamma reference voltage converting module. The display comprises the above Gamma reference voltage generating device, and thus can avoid poor display due to temperature influences. |
| US09997095B2 |
Display driving circuit and display apparatus including the same
A display apparatus includes a display driving circuit and a controller. The display driving circuit includes a data driver to sequentially drive a plurality of pixel groups during one horizontal period in a time-division manner. The pixel groups are included in each of the horizontal lines of a display panel. The controller analyzes a pattern of received image data and determines a driving sequence of the plurality of pixel groups of each horizontal line based on a result of the analysis of the pattern of received image data. |
| US09997094B2 |
Display devices
A display device comprises a display substrate, first interconnections, second interconnections, a driving circuit and a polarizing plate. The display substrate includes a bend portion which is curved with respect to an axis parallel to a first direction. The first interconnections extend in the first direction and are on the display substrate. The second interconnections are on the display substrate, connected to the first interconnections and extend in a second direction different from the first direction. The driving circuit is electrically connected to the first interconnections and the second interconnections and provides driving signals to the first interconnections and thesecond interconnections. The polarizing plate is on the display substrate and overlaps the first interconnections and the second interconnections. |
| US09997092B2 |
Presentation system with movable display devices
The present system and method provides for a new digital media paradigm enabling tight choreography of motion, content and, time able to be presented on a variety of hardware platforms consisting of robotic control of a multiplicity of display screens in the form of a movable array of 2 or more LCDs, LEDs, OLEDs, etc., with the movement and placement of each display achieved by one multi-axis manipulator arm mechanism. Motion control is achieved through software programmed onto one or more controller systems, and the corresponding tools necessary for creative visual designers to produce content meeting this new paradigm are also proposed. Each arm/display screen combination is kept aware of its positioning in physical space, relative to the positioning of each and every other arm/display screen at all times, in order to prevent collisions. The pre-programmed software control takes the form of a choreographed playlist of movements, content, and time that match the desired positioning of the array of display screens, in order to achieve the desired dynamic presentation of custom-produced digital content that will be presented across the array, in a fully coordinated fashion. |
| US09997086B1 |
Handheld communication device and method(s) of use
A handheld communication device is described. Embodiments of the handheld communication device include, but are not limited to, a device for the hearing impaired that may be implemented in two modes. A first mode may be implemented when the device user interacts with another individual face to face. The second mode can be implemented when the device user wants to communicate with one or more other users each having a handheld communication device. |
| US09997082B2 |
Personalized avatar responsive to user physical state and context
Systems and methods are disclosed that facilitate providing guidance to a user during performance of a program or routine using a personalized avatar. In an aspect, a system includes a reception component configured to receive biochemical information about a physiological state or condition of a user, including information identifying a presence or a status of one or more biomarkers. The system further includes an analysis component configured to determine or infer one or more characteristics of the physiological state or condition of the user based on the information identifying the presence or the status of the one or more biomarkers, and a visualization component configured to adapt an appearance of an avatar presented to the user based on the one or more characteristics to reflect the one or more characteristics. |
| US09997078B2 |
Obstacle determination and display system
An obstacle avoidance system is provided to assist a pilot in avoiding obstacles. The obstacle avoidance system includes a set of proximity sensors and a pilot interface device. The set of proximity sensors detects nearby obstacles by emitting a signal and receiving a reflected signal from an obstacle. A processor receives an obstacle indication from the set of proximity sensors and detects the obstacle that is in proximity to the aircraft based at least in part on the reflected signal. The processor acquires a distance and a direction to the obstacle and calculates a threat level posed by the obstacle. The pilot interface device is operable to display the following: an ownship icon indicative of the aircraft, a velocity vector icon indicative of a velocity vector of the aircraft, and an obstacle graphic indicative of the distance, direction, and threat level of the obstacle. |
| US09997069B2 |
Context-aware voice guidance
A context-aware voice guidance method is provided that interacts with other voice services of a user device. The voice guidance does not provide audible guidance while the user is making a verbal request to any of the voice-activated services. Instead, the voice guidance transcribes its output on the screen while the verbal requests from the user are received. In some embodiments, the voice guidance only provides a short warning sound to get the user's attention while the user is speaking on a phone call or another voice-activated service is providing audible response to the user's inquires. The voice guidance in some embodiments distinguishes between music that can be ducked and spoken words, for example from an audiobook, that the user wants to pause instead of being skipped. The voice guidance ducks music but pauses spoken words of an audio book in order to provide voice guidance to the user. |
| US09997064B2 |
Display apparatus and method for controlling display apparatus
A display apparatus and a method for controlling a display apparatus are provided. For example, a display apparatus which has an HCI type dual mode Bluetooth processor, and a method for controlling a display apparatus are provided. Example embodiments disclose a display apparatus which, in a standby mode in which a screen is turned off, controls the screen of the display apparatus having an HCI type dual mode Bluetooth processor, and a method for controlling a display apparatus. |
| US09997063B2 |
Remote controller for vehicle and method for providing function thereof
A remote controller for a vehicle includes: a communication module in communication with an external device; and a processor coupled to the communication module and configured to determine whether the remote controller is positioned outside of the vehicle or is positioned inside of the vehicle through communication with the external device, to provide a first function set when the remote controller is positioned outside of the vehicle, and to provide a second function set when the remote controller is positioned inside of the vehicle. |
| US09997061B2 |
Multi-device system with simplified communication
A system including at least a first command issuing device and at least one second command receiving device, each including a control unit and a short-range radio communication unit, the system configured to use at least a first functional profile allowing execution of a first function, the first profile allowing the first device to generate a first coded message, the first function being executed by the at least one second command receiving device upon receipt of the first coded message by the second device. The system is further configured such that the second command receiving device can execute a second function in response to receipt of the first coded message. |
| US09997060B2 |
Disrupting bone conduction signals
Concepts and technologies are disclosed herein for disrupting bone conduction signals. According to one aspect, a device can receive a signal via a communication path that is external to a body of a user associated with the device. The device can generate a disruption signal to disrupt the signal. The device can send the disruption signal through the body of the user to disrupt the signal. |
| US09997056B2 |
Security panel communication system
The invention relates to a wireless communication device for a security system that may include a device communicator configured for wireless communication with a security panel and for providing an additional wireless communication path to a monitoring center; and a premises power supply for removably connecting the device to a power source at the premises. The device may also include an alternate power supply, and an input device for enabling a user to initiate communications. The device may also be programmed so that the device can delay the transmission of an event signal for a predetermined period of time and then initiate transmission of the event signal if it does not receive a signal from the security panel to cancel transmission of the event signal during the predetermined period of time. |
| US09997054B2 |
Method and apparatus for disarming a security system
Methods and apparatus are described for automatically disarming a security system. For example, a method for automatically disarming a security system is described, comprising determining, by a personal communication device, when a person is in proximity to the person's home or business and, in response to determining that the person is in proximity to the person's home or business, transmitting a disarm command by the personal communication device to a security controller for the security controller to disarm the security system. |
| US09997051B2 |
Dual mode item locating system
A dual mode locating system for determining the location of predetermined items. The dual mode locating system includes a wall mounted locating housing, at least one locating beacons that is attachable to items to be monitored, and a positioning system interface, each of which are connected to a wireless network so as to allow them to communicate data electronically. The locating housing is operative to selectively generate a sensory alert on the locator beacon to provide for close proximity locating functionality. The positioning system interface is operative to retrieve real time positioning information from both the locating beacon and the locating housing and display the relative position of the locator beacon to the locating housing. As such, the positioning system interface provides for more remote proximity locating functionality. |
| US09997050B2 |
Tracking a user based on an electronic noise profile
An electronic device includes a device code, a processor, a wireless protocol transceiver, a motion detector, an alarm and a state machine. The electronic device has a device code associated with an owner. The electronic device's wireless protocol transceiver establishes a communication link with another wireless protocol transceiver associated with the owner. The motion detector detects movement of the electronic device. The state machine, operated by the processor, may stay at a first state or advance to a second state based on signals received from the wireless protocol transceiver and the motion detector. The second state signifies a reminder condition and upon arriving at the second state, the alarm is activated. |
| US09997047B2 |
System and method for detecting lubricated bearing condition
A monitoring system includes an analytical engine system coupled to a sensor of an engine system. The analytical engine system is configured to receive data corresponding to operation of the engine system, to determine a distance metric corresponding to the operating parameters of the engine system, to compare the distance metric for a monitored lubricant temperature to a model threshold, and to generate a lubricant alert signal when the distance metric for the monitored lubricant temperature is greater than the model threshold. The received data includes the monitored lubricant temperature of a bearing and operating parameters of the engine system. The distance metric is based at least in part on the monitored lubricant temperature relative to a lubricant temperature statistical model, which is based at least in part on the operating parameters of the engine system. |
| US09997046B2 |
Visitor flow management
Techniques for managing visitor flow in environments on which the visitors can have an impact are provided. In one aspect, a method for managing visitor flow in an indoor space is includes the steps of: obtaining real-time data from a wireless sensor network present in the indoor space, wherein the data indicates a presence/number of visitors in the indoor space and an environmental condition(s) in the indoor space; creating a risk map using the real-time data which indicates an impact the presence/number of visitors have on the environmental conditions in the indoor space; and generating an alert whenever the risk map indicates that the presence/number of visitors have greater than a predefined threshold impact on the environmental conditions in the indoor space. Systems for managing visitor flow in indoor spaces such as a gallery of a museum or a room in a hospital are also provided. |
| US09997045B2 |
Geo-location services
A method for geo-location services is described. In one embodiment, the method includes monitoring a status of an entrance associated with a dwelling, monitoring an occupancy in relation to the dwelling, and upon detecting an occupant of the dwelling departing from the dwelling and the status of the entrance of the dwelling is in an open state, generating a notification. In some cases, the entrance includes at least one of a doorway, a garage door, a gate, and a window. |
| US09997034B2 |
Fire scene evacuation guiding device
A fire scene evacuation guiding device includes an indicator (100) and a thermoelectric converter (200). The thermoelectric converter (200) is electrically connected with the indicator (100), the thermoelectric converter (200) includes a first detecting end (210) and a second detecting end (220), and the first detecting end (210) and the second detecting end (220) are arranged away from each other. The thermoelectric converter (200) can provide evacuation instructions according to a real time situation at a fire scene. |
| US09997032B2 |
Offline haptic conversion system
A system is provided that controls an offline haptic conversion. The system receives an input from a source. The system further converts the input into haptic signals. The system further encodes the haptic signals. The system further stores the haptic signals within the source, where the haptic signals are combined with the input within the source. Alternately, rather than encoding the haptic signals and storing the haptic signals within the source, the system handles the haptic signals separately, independent of the source. |
| US09997028B2 |
Financial device
The financial device comprises a medium depositing and withdrawing module, a discrimination module for discriminating the medium, a first transfer module for guiding the medium of the medium depositing and withdrawing module to the discrimination module, a temporary staking module in which a medium to be withdrawn is temporarily stacked, a first connection module transferring a medium between the discrimination module and the temporary staking module, a medium storage unit for storing a medium to be deposited or to be withdrawn, a second connection module for guiding a medium passing through the first connection module to the medium storage unit, a first frame in which the second connection module is installed, and a second frame in which the first connection module and the discrimination module are installed, and rotatably connected to the first frame. When rotating the second frame with respect to the first frame, the second connection module is exposed. |
| US09997027B2 |
Banking systems controlled by data bearing records
A cash handling device having at least one processor, a communication interface, an item accepting device, an item dispensing device, an internal currency scanning system, an internal currency transport system, one or more currency storage cartridges, and a memory may receive, from a user, a request to perform a deposit transaction. Based on receiving the request to perform the deposit transaction, the cash handling device may receive at least one deposit item for deposit. Subsequently, the cash handling device may validate the at least one deposit item received for deposit. Based on validating the at least one deposit item received for deposit, the cash handling device may generate a deposit transaction record that includes information directing a banking server to apply a provisional credit to a treasury account associated with the user. Subsequently, the cash handling device may send the deposit transaction record to the banking server. |
| US09997026B2 |
Method and system for validating a lottery ticket using an encrypted registration code
A method for authenticating instant lottery tickets for entry into a lottery activity includes providing each lottery ticket with a validation code that links the lottery ticket to an electronic validation file in a database, wherein the validation file contains a predetermined outcome of the lottery ticket and a status of the lottery ticket. Each lottery ticket is provided with a registration code separate from the validation code, wherein the registration code is used to register the lottery ticket in the lottery activity. The registration code is generated as an encrypted form of the validation code for each respective ticket. With a server and upon receipt of the registration code for entry into the lottery activity, the registration code is decrypted to determine the validation code assigned to the lottery ticket. The validation file associated with the decrypted registration code is accessed and used to verify authenticity and status of the lottery ticket required for entry into the lottery activity. |
| US09997020B2 |
Local jackpot system appearing global in nature and global prize management system and method of use
A local jackpot system for land-based and online casinos. The jackpots comprise a continuous pool of ‘Experiences You Can't Buy’ prizes. Examples include: (a) a trip on a private jet with the soccer team of FC Barcelona, (b) a trip on a private yacht with one or more Formula 1 drivers during the Grand Prix of Monaco, (c) a shopping trip with Paris Hilton, (d) a dinner with George Clooney or (e) an acting scene in the next Hollywood blockbuster. The local jackpot system is configured to appear global in nature. Each client may be managed separately and can be customized via an internet connection. A monitoring application/module/system is installed with the purpose of monitoring and setting up local clients and broadcasting winning events globally. One or more random number generators (“RNGs”) run on each client such that prize selection is accomplished randomly at each client. |
| US09997019B2 |
Slot machine
A slot machine device providing a unique operation, payout scheme, and structure. This slot machine provides optional, unique game play features. These features may include a Notice feature which informs a player if the next cycle will be a win or a loss; a Flush feature allowing a player to discard a losing cycle; a Do-Over feature, allowing a player to replay a cycle if they do not like the results of the prior cycle; a skill-based feature that requires the player to display an element of skill; and a social feature that requires the player to perform a social task. These features may be turned on and off, and the slot machine may be configured to automatically adjust a payout option depending on what features are activated. |
| US09997016B2 |
Parallel AI hybrid gaming system
A parallel AI hybrid game that allows a player to play a hybrid game against an Artificially Intelligent Non-Player Character (AI NPC). In operation, the player and the AI NPC utilize different respective pseudo random or random number generators to generate respective wagering outcomes. |
| US09997013B2 |
Gaming table, novel event generator and method of altering underlying games on the game table
A gaming system enables enhancement of wagering outcomes using: a) a gaming table having a game play surface for multiple players; b) a programmable electronic random number generator; c) a player input control at a player position; d) a display system capable of indicating a secondary random event outcome provided by the programmable electronic random number generator for each of the multiple players; and e) the random number generator configured to control of a display individual player position secondary random events determined by the random number generator. The gaming system is configured so that i) after at least one wager has been locked in at a player position, ii) the secondary random event for the player position is indicated and locked into the display system for a round of play of an underlying primary wagering event at the gaming table. |
| US09997012B2 |
Gaming machine with symbol restriction
A gaming machine may award a number of spins of a plurality of reels in an instance of the bonus game. A symbol counter may be set to an initial value. Until the awarded number of bonus game spins have been performed, the gaming machine may repeatedly carry out iterations of bonus game operations including: (i) selecting a first symbol set or a second symbol set for display on the plurality of reels, where the first symbol set excludes a predetermined symbol, where the second symbol set includes a number of the predetermined symbol equivalent to the symbol counter, and where, when the second symbol set is selected, the symbol counter is incremented, and (ii) transmitting, to a client machine, a representation of the selected symbol set. |
| US09997009B2 |
Enhanced electronic gaming machine with X-ray vision display
An electronic gaming machine to play an interactive game where a players eye gaze acts as x-ray vision. A graphics processor generates an interactive game environment and defines a viewing area as its subset. A display device displays the viewing area, where a visible game component masks an invisible game component. A display controller controls rendering of the viewing area on the display device using the graphics processor. At least one data capture camera device continuously monitors player eye gaze to collect player eye gaze data. A game controller calculates a player eye gaze location relative to the viewing area, the location corresponding to the invisible game component, and triggers a control command to the display controller. In response, the display controller controls the display device in real-time to provide a graphical animation effect representative of a visual update to the visible game component to reveal the invisible game component. |
| US09997008B2 |
Reel device for a gaming machine
A gaming machine includes: a reel having an outer circumferential surface on which symbols are lined up; a reel driving mechanism which rotates the reel to rearrange the symbols; a magnet which is provided in the reel driving mechanism to change an external magnetic field in accordance with the rotation of the reel; a magnetic force detecting mechanism which detects a magnetic force of the external magnetic field so as to output a magnetic force detection signal; a reel setting unit by which the magnetic force detection signal and arrangement positions of the symbols are associated with one another; and a reel drive control unit which controls the reel driving mechanism so that the symbols are rearranged in a predetermined arrangement based on the magnetic force detection signal and the arrangement positions of the symbols. |
| US09997004B2 |
Paper sheet processing apparatus and paper sheet processing system
Provided is a paper sheet processing system capable of collecting a wrong paper sheet put in a bill processing apparatus to examine the collected paper sheet without making the supplier feel doubt. A paper sheet processing apparatus verifies a paper sheet using image data acquired by a bill reader when the bill is being conveyed. If the paper sheet is determined to be counterfeit in the verification, the paper sheet processing apparatus holds the paper sheet within the paper sheet processing apparatus and sends a signal from a controller of the paper sheet processing apparatus to instruct a report device to report a result different from the result of the verification. The report device reports a result irrelevant to use of a wrong paper sheet. |
| US09997001B2 |
Electronic access control and location tracking system
A method and system that allows authorized individuals access into controlled access locations and the ability to grant temporary and limited access to guests into these locations. The method and system allows for navigational services to be provided to members and guests, and real-time tracking and confirmation to members and administrators that guests have arrived at their destination and did not enter any unauthorized areas. The method preferably can work through a system of wireless radio, sound and/or light-based beacons communicating with member and guest's electronic devices. Members and administrators can send one or more temporary electronic access keys to a guest's smartphone or other electronic device. Wireless radio, sound and/or light-based beacons provide an access control and location tracking system with real-time data about the member and guest whereabouts, allowing for the confirmation and tracking. |
| US09997000B2 |
Door unlocking system and door unlocking method
An electronic key actively executes wireless communication following a keyless entry communication and passively executes wireless communication following a RFID communication. A vehicle control device is mounted on a vehicle and actively executes wireless communication following each of the keyless entry communication and RFID communication. An ECU/BCM unlocks a door by communicating with the electronic key using the keyless entry communication and issues a password to the electronic key in relation to this action. When a door knob or handle is pulled, an RFID-IC acquires the password issued by the ECU/BCM from the electronic key using the RFID communication and unlocks the door by authenticating the acquired password. |
| US09996999B2 |
Location tracking for locking device
Disclosed are methods, systems, and computer-readable media for tracking location of locking devices. One locking device includes a wireless transceiver, a memory, an electronically controllable locking mechanism, a processor, and a location determination circuit configured to determine a location of the electronic locking device. The processor is configured to receive one or more location data items indicating the location of the electronic locking device at one or more times, to store the one or more location data items in the memory, and to transmit the one or more location data items from the memory to a mobile device via the wireless transceiver. |
| US09996992B2 |
Vehicular event monitoring system
A method and system for gathering, storing, and retrieving information from vehicular information sources in the vicinity of an event involving a vehicle is provided. Information is captured using sensors associated with a vehicle. The sensors may monitor systems within the vehicle and the external surroundings of the vehicle. Information is recorded for a selected period of time and then tagged. The tagged information is transmitted and received using one or more radio frequency (RF) capable devices. The information is stored in a storage device and is automatically reviewed to determine if an event involving a vehicle occurred during a selected period of time. If an event has occurred, the stored information may be placed in an account accessible by a user. If the event is an accident, the stored information and newly gathered information may be automatically forwarded to a first responder in near real time. |
| US09996991B2 |
Engine generator
An engine generator includes a generator body connected to an engine, a converter including rectifiers that convert an output from the generator body to DC current, an inverter that converts an output from the converter to AC current, an input voltage detector that detects an input voltage from the generator body to the converter, and an AC current detector that detects an AC current output from the inverter. An abnormality in the engine generator is determined if a state that a current detected by the AC current detector is not higher than a first threshold value and a duty ratio of a voltage detected by the input voltage detector is not higher than the second threshold value continues for a first predetermined time; or if the current detected by the AC current detector is not higher than a third threshold value and the duty ratio change rate is not higher than a fourth threshold value. |
| US09996990B2 |
Enhanced vehicle bad fuel sensor with crowdsourcing analytics
A fuel analysis system is described configured to assist vehicle drivers/users in preventing damage to their vehicles caused by bad fuel. Bad fuel can leave a driver and passengers stranded on the road in need of emergency road side service, and in many instances, results in permanent damage to the vehicle. The disclosed fuel analysis system describes an enhanced bad fuel sensor system that measures a delta in vehicle operation data to identify and in many instances, pre-emptively alert, a user of a vehicle of bad fuel. The fuel analysis system may use crowdsourcing through aggregation of refueling event profile records from a plurality of vehicles' telematics devices to increase the accuracy with which bad fuel is detected. |
| US09996987B2 |
Wireless incentive system for vehicle users
The disclosure includes a system and method for determining, based on vehicle sensor data associated with the vehicle, a current vehicle condition that is detrimental to operation of the vehicle, transmitting, by a mobile computing device programmed to perform the transmitting, a description of the current vehicle condition to a condition message provider, and receiving a condition message that includes offer data and mitigating plan data describing one or more steps configured to alter the current vehicle condition. |
| US09996985B2 |
Distribution and enablement of reloadable prepaid cards in transit
Techniques for concurrent distribution of reloadable prepaid cards and enablement of the reloadable prepaid cards for use at access control points of a transit system. Techniques of enabling of the reloadable prepaid cards for use at access control points of the transit system can include obtaining user information, payment, and communicating card information to a card issuer for activation of the first reloadable prepaid card. A transit user account for managing transactional information of the user of the transit system is also created, reloadable prepaid card is enabled for use as fare media at access control points of the transit system. Thus, once distributed, the prepaid reloadable cards may be used as fare media in the transit system as payment for transit fare, as well as for purchases at locations outside the transit system. |
| US09996978B2 |
System and method of simulating first-person control of remote-controlled vehicles
Systems and methods of simulating first-person control of remoted-controlled vehicles are described herein. The system may include one or more of a remote-controlled (RC) vehicle, a display interface, an input interface, and/or other components. The RC vehicle may have an image capturing device configured to capture in-flight images. View information representing the captured images may presented on a display worn and/or otherwise accessible to user. The input interface may allow the user to provide control inputs for dictating a path of the RC vehicle. Augmented reality graphics may be overlaid on the view information presented to the user to facilitate gameplay and/or otherwise enhance a user's experience. |
| US09996977B2 |
Compensating for ambient light in augmented or virtual reality systems
An augmented reality device comprises one or more sensors to detect a property pertaining to an ambient light, a processor communicatively coupled to the one or more sensors to modify a characteristic associated with a virtual image to be projected to the user of a head-mounted augmented reality system based at least in part on the detected property, and an optical sub-system to project light associated with the virtual image having the modified characteristic. |
| US09996972B1 |
User/object interactions in an augmented reality environment
An augmented reality environment allows interaction between virtual and real objects. By monitoring user actions with the augmented reality environment various functions are provided to users. Users may buy or sell items with a gesture, check inventory of objects in the augmented reality environment, view advertisements, and so forth. |
| US09996964B2 |
Apparatus, method and computer program for generating cartoon content
An apparatus for generating cartoon content includes a cut input controller configured to control inputting of a signal of adding a cut comprising one or more layers; an effect input controller configured to control inputting of a plurality of effects applied to a first layer among the one or more layers and receiving of property information such that directing of the plurality of effects interact with each other; and a cut generator configured to determine at least one of a directing start time, a directing end time, and a directing speed of the plurality of effects such that the plurality of effects interact with each other and are displayed, and generate a first final cut such that the plurality of effects are expressed according to the property information, wherein the effect input controller enters an input that sets the property information of the plurality of effects to be synchronized with the plurality of effects, and wherein the cut generator generates the first final cut such that a directing start time, a directing end time, or a directing time of a first effect among the plurality of effects is synchronized with a directing start time, a directing end time, or a directing time of one or more effects excluding the first effect. |
| US09996962B2 |
Apparatus and method for performing motion capture using a random pattern on capture surfaces
A method is described comprising: applying a random pattern to specified regions of an object; tracking the movement of the random pattern during a motion capture session; and generating motion data representing the movement of the object using the tracked movement of the random pattern. |
| US09996958B2 |
System and method for creating a virtual backdrop
Some implementations may provide a method for generating a portrait of a subject for an identification document, the method including: receiving a photo image of the subject, the photo image including the subject's face in a foreground against an arbitrary background; determining the arbitrary background of the photo image based on the photo image alone and without user intervention; masking the determined background from the photo image; and subsequently generating the portrait of the subject for the identification document of the subject, the portrait based on the photo image with the determined background masked. |
| US09996955B2 |
Analytics visualization
Systems, device and techniques are disclosed for analytics visualization. A selection of a data set may be received. A first visualization associated with the data set may be generated. A selection of a first data subset of the data set may be received. A second visualization associated with the first data subset of the data set may be generated. The second visualization may be visually linked to the first visualization with a first visual link. A selection of a second data subset of the data set may be received. A third visualization associated with the second data subset of the data set may be generated. The third visualization may be visually linked to the first visualization with a second visual link and displayed simultaneously with the second visualization. |
| US09996953B2 |
Three-dimensional annotation facing
Concepts and technologies are described herein for providing a three-dimensional (“3D”) annotation facing tool. In accordance with some concepts and technologies disclosed herein, the 3D annotation facing tool provides a way for a user to control the orientation of annotations associated with productivity data in a 3D environment. The 3D annotation facing tool can provide a user with the ability to lock the orientation of the annotation along one or more directional axes. The 3D annotation facing tool can also provide a user with the ability to maintain an orientation of the annotation in a camera facing view. |
| US09996952B1 |
Analytic system for graphical interactive B-spline model selection
A computing device provides graphical interactive b-spline model selection. A presented criterion fit graph includes a number of internal knots line that indicates a number of internal knots value of a determined best fit b-spline model and a polynomial degree curve for each of a set of polynomial degree values. Each polynomial degree curve shows a fit criterion value as a function of the number of internal knot values. A best fit b-spline model graph is presented next to the presented criterion fit graph that includes a knot location line at each of the knot locations of the determined best fit b-spline model and a best fit model curve computed using the coefficients of the determined best fit b-spline model. An indicator that the number of internal knots line is moved to a different number of internal knots value is received. The best fit b-spline model graph is then updated. |
| US09996951B2 |
Computerized tomographic image exposure and reconstruction method
A computerized tomographic image exposure and reconstruction method wherein an object is subjected to irradiation during a relative movement of a source of radiation, the object, and a radiation detector and wherein a digital representation of the radiation image of the object is computed by applying a tomographic reconstruction algorithm to image data read out of the irradiated radiation detector. A number of projection images are generated, each of the projection images being generated by integrating X-ray beams continuously emitted during the relative movement through a predefined movement path, and the created projection images are modeled in a tomographic reconstruction algorithm. |
| US09996950B2 |
Image processing method displaying processed image representing result of color modification process
An image processing method includes: (a) displaying a plurality of candidate image processes to be performed on image data, the plurality of candidate image processes including a color modification process; (b) receiving an instruction indicating the color modification process selected from among the plurality of candidate image processes; (c) displaying a display image corresponding to the image data on the display; (d) designating a display image; and (e) displaying a processed display image that represents a result of the selected color modification process performed on the image data corresponding to the designated display image before the selected color modification process on the image data corresponding to the designated display image is performed. |
| US09996947B2 |
Monitoring apparatus and monitoring method
This disclosure describes an information processing apparatus including a processor configured to acquire first image data, detect reference image data of a particular object from the first image data, store first time information indicating a first time when the reference image data is detected from the first image data or when the first image data is captured, acquire second image data, generate, when another reference image data of another particular object is detected from the second image data, second time information indicating a second time when the another reference image data is detected from the second image data or when the second image data is captured, generate movement information based on a difference between the first time information and the second time information, and determine whether a work is implemented in a place where the work has to be implemented. |
| US09996945B1 |
Live augmented reality guides
Various embodiments of the present invention relate generally to systems and methods for analyzing and manipulating images and video. According to particular embodiments, the spatial relationship between multiple images and video is analyzed together with location information data, for purposes of creating a representation referred to herein as a surround view for presentation on a device. A visual guide can provided for capturing the multiple images used in the surround view. The visual guide can be a synthetic object that is rendered in real-time into the images output to a display of an image capture device. The visual guide can help user keep the image capture device moving along a desired trajectory. |
| US09996941B2 |
Constrained key frame localization and mapping for vision-aided inertial navigation
Estimation techniques for vision-aided inertial navigation are described. In one example, a vision-aided inertial navigation system (VINS) comprises an image source to produce image data for a keyframe and one or more non-keyframes along a trajectory, the one or more non-keyframes preceding the keyframe along the trajectory. The VINS comprises an inertial measurement unit (IMU) to produce IMU data indicative of a motion of the VINS along the trajectory for the keyframe and the one or more non-keyframes, and a processing unit comprising an estimator that processes the IMU data and the image data to compute state estimates of the VINS. The estimator computes the state estimates of the VINS for the keyframe by constraining the state estimates based on the IMU data and the image data for the one or more non-keyframes of the VINS without computing state estimates of the VINS for the one or more non-keyframes. |
| US09996940B1 |
Expression transfer across telecommunications networks
Methods, devices, and systems for expression transfer are disclosed. The disclosure includes capturing a first image of a face of a person. The disclosure includes generating an avatar based on the first image of the face of the person, with the avatar approximating the first image of the face of the person. The disclosure includes transmitting the avatar to a destination device. The disclosure includes capturing a second image of the face of the person on a source device. The disclosure includes calculating expression information based on the second image of the face of the person, with the expression information approximating an expression on the face of the person as captured in the second image. The disclosure includes transmitting the expression information from the source device to the destination device. The disclosure includes animating the avatar on a display component of the destination device using the expression information. |
| US09996939B2 |
Large-range-first cross-camera visual target re-identification method
The present invention relates to a large-range-first cross-camera visual target re-identification method. The method comprises: step S1, obtaining initial single-camera tracks of targets; step S2, calculating a piecewise major color spectrum histogram feature of each track, and obtaining a track feature representation; step S3, obtaining a calculation formula of the similarity between any two tracks by using a minimum uncertainty method, so as to obtain the similarity between any two tracks; and step S4, performing global data association on all the tracks by using a maximum posterior probability method, so as to obtain a cross-camera tracking result. The target re-identification method of the present invention achieves high correct identification accuracy. |
| US09996936B2 |
Predictor-corrector based pose detection
A computer-implemented method, apparatus, computer readable medium and mobile device for determining a 6DOF pose from an input image. The process of determining 6DOF pose may include processing an input image to create one or more static representations of the input image, creating a dynamic representation of the input image from an estimated 6DOF pose and a 2.5D reference map, and measuring correlation between the dynamic representation and the one or more static representations of the input image. The estimated 6DOF may be iteratively adjusted according to the measured correlation error until a final adjusted dynamic representation meets an output threshold. |
| US09996935B2 |
Systems and methods of dynamic image segmentation
An ultrasound processing system includes an ultrasound interface, processing electronics, and display electronics. The ultrasound interface receives imaging information. The processing electronics are coupled to the ultrasound interface and configured to utilize the ultrasound imaging information to process an ultrasound scene for display. The processing electronics parse the scene into segments based on a plurality of automatically detected image characteristics and dynamically assign different processing parameters to different segments. Display electronics are coupled to the processing electronics and the processing electronics are configured to cause the display electronics to output the processed ultrasound scene. |
| US09996931B2 |
Method for calibrating camera measurement system
In a calibration method a ring-shaped jig is disposed on a machine tool workpiece. The optical axis of a camera is aligned parallel to an axis of the machine tool. The jig is photographed with the horizontal or the vertical direction of the camera aligned with an axial direction other than the signal direction of the machine tool. The circumferential shape of the jig in the photograph is extracted as a contour. The center position of the jig in the image is calculated from the contour while all distortion correction coefficients in tangential and radial directions are ignored and set to zero. The displacements of the main point of the camera are set to zero. The translation distance, which is an external parameter of calibration, is calculated based on the center position of the jig in the image and the known three-dimensional center position of the jig. |
| US09996930B2 |
Image processing apparatus, image processing method, and storage medium storing a program that determine a conformable image
An image processing apparatus includes an image obtaining unit to obtain a time-sequential image obtained in order of a start image, a plurality of intermediate images, and an end image. A route determining unit determines a route passing from the start to the end image via at least one of the plurality of intermediate images for the time-sequential image. An image selecting unit selects a plurality of first selection images from among the plurality of intermediate images. A conformity calculating unit calculates a first conformity based on image quality of the first selection image and a similarity between the start image and the first selection image, for each of the plurality of first selection images. A conformable image determining unit determines a first conformable image from among the plurality of first selection images on the basis of the first conformity corresponding to each of the plurality of first section images. |
| US09996928B2 |
Disease diagnostic apparatus, image processing method in the same apparatus, and medium storing program associated with the same method
An image processing method for diagnosing a disease using a captured image of an affected area, includes separating the captured image memorized into a brightness component and a color information component; separating the brightness component into a base component and a detail component; performing a highlighting process on the detail component; and restoring a brightness component from the base component and a highlighted detail component, and then generating a highlighted image using a restored brightness component and the color information component. The highlighting process includes highlighting the detail component depending on likelihood of vessel of a region to be diagnosed. In the highlighting process, the color information component that corresponds to a direction of a red-based color in a first color space is acquired; a predetermined range of the color information component is normalized; and a likelihood (V) of vessel of the region as acquired via the normalization is reflected in a highlighting coefficient of the detail component to generate a highlighted detail component image. |
| US09996923B2 |
Methods and apparatuses for dermatological feature tracking over multiple images
Methods and apparatus are disclosed that assist a user such as a doctor to track changes that occur in features of a subject's skin as the skin features evolve over time. Such a tracking can be done for images captured under different imaging/lighting modalities, by different image capture devices, and/or at different points in time. Methods and apparatus to automatically identify and track the unconstrained appearance/disappearance of skin features are disclosed. |
| US09996921B2 |
Detection of metal stent struts
The disclosure relates to stent detection and shadow detection in the context of intravascular data sets obtained using a probe such as, for example, and optical coherence tomography probe or an intravascular ultrasound probe. |
| US09996917B2 |
Data administration system and method
The present invention relates to a data administration system (1a, 1b, 1c) comprising a sensor unit (10) for obtaining image data of at least a body part of a living being (2), a vital sign extraction unit (12) for extracting one or more vital signs of said living being (2) from the obtained image data of said living being (2), a feature extraction unit (14) for extracting one or more features of said living being (2) from the obtained image data of said living being (2), an identification unit (16) for determining the identity of said living being (2) by use of said one or more extracted features of said living being (2), and a data association unit (18) for associating the one or more extracted vital signs of said living being (2) with the determined identity of said living being (2). |
| US09996916B2 |
Evaluation method, storage medium, exposure apparatus, exposure method, and method of manufacturing article
The present invention provides an evaluation method of evaluating optical characteristics of a projection optical system by obtaining, by a prediction formula, a predicted value for a fluctuation amount of the optical characteristics relative to an exposure period of a substrate via the projection optical system, the method comprising determining the prediction formula by using a dedicated pattern in which a plurality of marks are arranged in a matrix on an object plane of the projection optical system, wherein the determining includes selecting, from the plurality of marks, at least two marks located in an illuminated region to be formed on the object plane when exposing the substrate, and obtaining the prediction formula based on positions of images of the at least two marks formed on an image plane of the projection optical system. |
| US09996910B2 |
Radiographic image processing device, method, and recording medium
A frequency resolution unit performs frequency resolution of a radiographic image to generate band images representing frequency components in a plurality of frequency bands. A reference image generation unit generates a reference image representing information associated with scattered radiation included in the radiographic image, and generates a plurality of band reference images corresponding to a plurality of frequency bands from the reference image. A band image conversion unit performs conversion between the corresponding pixels of the band reference images and the band images in the corresponding frequency bands to generate converted band images. A synthesis unit synthesizes the converted band images to generate a processed radiographic image with converted contrast. |
| US09996909B2 |
Clothing image processing device, clothing image display method and program
A clothing image processing device acquires an image of a first item, the first item being placed in a projection direction of a projection device and worn on one of a plurality of parts of a human body; measures a position of a specific portion of the first item in the acquired image; determines a position of a second item based on the measured position of the specific portion and on a specific portion of the second item; adjusts, based on a position of a projection target onto which the projection device projects and the position of the second item, a size and position of an image of the second item that is to be projected onto the projection target; and controls the projection device so that the adjusted image of the second item is projected. |
| US09996900B2 |
Methods and systems for demosaicing an image
Methods and systems are presented for converting a mosaiced image in which, for each pixel, a single color intensity value is defined for only one corresponding color, into a full color image in which, for each pixel, color intensity values are defined for each of three colors. For each color, the intensity values of the mosaiced image are interpolated, and regression filtering is performed using the intensity values of one or both of the other colors. Residual values are found as the difference between the result of the regression filtering and the mosaiced image, and these are interpolated, and added to the output of the regression, to form a full color image. The process may be iterated. In each iteration, the regression is performed using the refined channel images generated in the previous iteration. |
| US09996897B2 |
Image display method for a portable display device
An image display method for a portable display device to be implemented by a processing module includes: controlling the portable display device to display an image in a default position within a display area; estimating a displacement distance of the portable display device during an (X+1)th unit time period, based at least on a number (N) of displacement distances of the portable display device respectively during (N) number of immediately previous unit time periods or on accelerations of the portable display device respectively associated with (X−1)th and (X)th unit time periods; and controlling the portable display device to shift the image with respect to the display area based on the displacement distance estimated thereby. |
| US09996896B2 |
Display compensation method, display compensation module and display apparatus
There are provided a display compensation method, a display compensation module and a display apparatus. The method comprises following steps: receiving an image signal to be displayed (S1); obtaining a user position (S2) which is a relative position of a user relative to a the display apparatus; compensating for the image signal to be displayed according to the user position to obtain a compensated image signal (S3); and outputting the compensated image signal (S4). The display compensation method, the display compensation module and the display apparatus can be used for manufacturing the display, and can avoid the image distortion occurred to the image viewed by the user due to the different distances from the user to respective points on the display such that the user's experience in the display effect of the display can be raised. |
| US09996890B1 |
Detection of items
According to an aspect, a system comprises at least one processor, a memory, and a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions. The stored instructions are executable to cause the at least one processor to: receive a digital image that represents an object scanned by a detection device, determine a region of the digital image that is likely to contain an item, transform the region of the digital image to an embedding, classify, based on the embedding, the region as containing a known class of known item, and responsive to classifying the region as containing the known class of item: generate a graphical representation based on the known class of item. |
| US09996882B1 |
System and method for determining an insurance premium quote based on human telematic data and structure related telematic data
Systems and methods are disclosed herein for pricing an insurance premium based on analysis of various telematic data. The system includes a user with a wearable human telematic sensor providing telematic data about the wearer. Also, the system and method includes at least one building/environment telematic sensor configured to provide telematic data about the building and surrounding environment. The various telematic data is communicated and processed to provide an insurance quote to the user based upon analysis of the telematic data. |
| US09996879B2 |
Selective delayed and undelayed database updating
Received data messages are delayed for further processing based on a bypass condition. Data messages that conform to the bypass condition are not delayed. Data messages that do not conform to the bypass condition are delayed by a delay. Data messages can be representative of orders in an electronic marketplace or trading system. The bypass condition can include indication of a post-only order. The bypass condition can further include indication of a volume that meets or exceeds a minimum volume. The delay can be calculated from a base delay and a variance that modifies the base delay. The variance can be randomly or pseudo-randomly selected and can conform to a maximum variance. |
| US09996877B2 |
System and method for using order modifiers in relation to trading strategies
A quantity modifier and a price modifier are provided for a spread trading strategy having a desired spread price and a desired spread quantity. According to an example embodiment, a quantity modifier divides the desired spread quantity into a plurality of disclosed spread quantities. Once the disclosed quantities are determined, a plurality of disclosed spread orders having the disclosed spread quantities are sequentially submitted to the market until the full desired spread order quantity is executed or until a predefined condition is detected. A price modifier determines a price level for each disclosed spread quantity, such that each disclosed spread order may be submitted at a different price level. |
| US09996870B2 |
Method, system, and computer readable medium for utilizing job control orders in an order management system
According to one aspect, the disclosed subject matter describes herein a method that includes detecting a fallout condition associated with a communication of orders directed to a network target in an order and service management (OSM) system, identifying a plurality of failed orders corresponding to the fallout condition, and generating a job control order that designates a remedial operation to be applied to each of the plurality of failed orders. |
| US09996867B2 |
Local merchant recommendation engine
Systems and methods of the present invention provide for one or more server computers communicatively coupled to a network and configured to: receive a request for a product or service; determine a geographic region associated with the request; search a first data regarding websites available only to the hosting provider as host of the websites and a second data regarding websites available to the public via the Internet; determine, based on the first data and the second data, which of the websites are most relevant to the request; and return an information about one or more of the websites responsive to the request, wherein each of the websites has a physical location within the geographic region. |
| US09996866B2 |
Item location assistant with custom price display
Methods and systems for improving a shopping experience are described. When a shopper walks into a store, the shopper's mobile device transmits a signal with the shopper's shopping preferences and shopper profile. Any items that are within a certain distance of the mobile device and satisfy at least one of the shopper's preferences may light up to indicate that the item matches something the shopper is looking for. In addition, the price of the item based on the shopper profile for that shopper is displayed. |
| US09996863B2 |
Methods and systems for integrating procurement systems with electronic catalogs
A request for shopping is placed from inside a procurement system. Intelligent agents are launched to retrieve information from catalog sources web-enabled over the internet or within the intranet. Retrieved catalog information is aggregated and associated with other data items. Business rules are applied to make decisions on what part of aggregated information will be rendered to a User. Sorting/multi-level refining operations are enabled. The User selects one or more catalog results, whereupon an XML shopping cart is created and submitted to the procurement system through published interfaces. The procurement system is enabled to place an order on supplier web-enabled transaction systems. |
| US09996862B2 |
Point of sale email-based e-commerce
An e-commerce system includes a mobile device and a server. The mobile device produces or is configured to respond to an indicator of a product or service. The mobile device sends a first message to the server in response to the indicator. The mobile device receives a second message in response to the sent first message. The mobile device receives a user input based on the received second message. The mobile device sends a third message to a server in response to the user input. A user of the mobile device is provided the product or service based on the sent third message. |
| US09996860B2 |
Efficient promotion model
One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for promoting a service using a gifting model. For example, a gifting model, for a service (e.g., a multimedia content service that provides movies, music, apps, etc.), may specify what types of online users are eligible to be promoters and/or what online promotional gifts are available for promoters to gift to online recipient users. In an example, one or more online promotional gifts (e.g., a television show, a song, etc.) of the multimedia content service are exposed to an online user. A gift request is received from the online user. The gift request may specify an online recipient user and a selected online promotional gift (e.g., an action movie). The online promotional gift is provided to the online recipient user. In this way, online users may promote a service by providing promotional gifts, such as for free, to online recipient users. |
| US09996851B1 |
Performance based content item ranking
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for distributing content items are disclosed. In one aspect, a method includes accessing a scaling factor value and accessing a first page value range specifying at least a high page value and a low page value. A determination is made that a first ranking of content items based on the high page value does not match a second ranking of the content items that is based on the low page value. In response to determining that the first ranking does not match the second ranking, an updated first ranking and an updated second ranking are determined based on a second page value range. A determination is made that the updated first ranking matches the updated second ranking. Content items are distributed based on the updated first ranking. |
| US09996846B2 |
Transforming social media re-shares to track referrer history and identify influencers
Approaches are provided for tracking and measuring the influence of social networking members on groups of friends to engage in electronic commerce. An approach includes receiving unique identifier information and activity information for a user that referred a social media link to one or more other users. The approach further includes generating a reference identifier for the referrer of the social media link to the one or more other users. The approach further includes embedding the generated reference identifier into the social media link. The generated reference identifier includes a concatenation of the unique identifier information, the activity information, and information pertaining to referrals of the social media link prior to the referrer to the one or more other users. |
| US09996838B2 |
Cloud service facilitator apparatuses, methods and systems
The CLOUD SERVICE FACILITATOR APPARATUSES, METHODS AND SYSTEMS (“CSF”) transforms user purchase requests, refund requests, and product/service replacement requests via CSF components into transaction records, refunds, and replacement products/services outputs. The CSF may receive a consumer purchase request for a cloud service from a merchant. In response to the request, the CSF may generate a unique record key for the purchase and may transmit the unique record key to the merchant. The CSF may further receive additional transaction information and the unique record key from the merchant. In response to the received information and the unique key, the CSF may provide additional service to the merchant or the consumer. |
| US09996835B2 |
Systems and methods for communicating token attributes associated with a token vault
Systems and methods for interoperable network token processing are provided. A network token system provides a platform that can be leveraged by external entities (e.g., third party wallets, e-commerce merchants, payment enablers/payment service providers, etc.) or internal payment processing network systems that have the need to use the tokens to facilitate payment transactions. A token registry vault can provide interfaces for various token requestors (e.g., mobile device, issuers, merchants, mobile wallet providers, etc.), merchants, acquirers, issuers, and payment processing network systems to request generation, use and management of tokens. The network token system further provides services such as card registration, token generation, token issuance, token authentication and activation, token exchange, and token life-cycle management. |
| US09996830B2 |
Split message initiated payment system, method and apparatus
A system, method, and computer-readable storage medium configured to split a payment card transaction into separate channels with a merchant bill message and cardholder payment message. |
| US09996827B2 |
System and method for metered parking at a parking server
A parking request text message is transmitted from a user mobile phone to a billing server and is forwarded to a parking server. The parking server makes a charge API call to the billing server, including a custom text, an amount to be billed and a msisdn of the mobile phone. The billing server charges an account at a carrier server corresponding to the msisdn, receives a charge confirmation from the carrier server, transmits a billing result to the parking server, and sends a confirmation text message to the user mobile phone with the custom text. The parking server updates a parking data structure to indicate that parking has been allotted based on a parking identification in the parking request text message. |
| US09996826B2 |
System and methods for facilitating value exchanges using mobile devices
A system and method for facilitating a value exchange transaction. A first party initiates the transaction by selecting or providing an identifier of another party and the value to be exchanged. The second party may be identified by a pre-existing identifier such as an electronic mail address, telephone number, etc. The system informs the second party of the transaction (e.g., using the specified pre-existing identifier). If the second party is not a registered user of the system, he or she is invited to register and complete the transaction. The system may comprise a synchronization server for exchanging transaction details with users' devices, a communication server for registering new users and/or conducting transactions online and a financial server for interacting with external financial institutions. |
| US09996822B2 |
Systems and methods for identifying hidden talent
A candidate assessment system reviews gaming data from a plurality of players to determine how well those players fit a particular job opening. The system uses one or more interpretation metrics to derive skill sets for each player by analyzing game attribute data from game scenarios played by the player. Each interpretation metric is generally unique, allowing the candidate assessment engine to derive a player's skill sets in markedly different ways. |
| US09996821B2 |
Consumer demand-based inventory management system
In some embodiments, methods and systems of managing products at a retail sales facility include scanning a product in a stocking cart at the retail sales facility using a hand-held electronic device including a processor. At least two of the following three functions may be performed based on the scanning of the product. First, the stocking cart may be audited by comparing scanned data to data contained in an inventory management database. Second, a determination of whether the item is on a pick list may be made, which may include determining a demand for the scanned product to arrive at a decision whether to store the product in the stock room or place it on a shelf on the sales floor. Third, if the item is to be stored in the stock room, a determination of whether identical items are stored in bins in the stock room may be made. |
| US09996820B2 |
Systems and methods for detecting missing labels
Described in detail herein are methods and systems for detecting missing or miss positioned labels. The system can include a portable scanning device to scan machine-readable elements included on labels at a first and second location. The portable scanning device can detect the acceleration and the cumulative change between the first and second location. The portable scanning device or a computing system can determine the distance between the first and second location based on the acceleration data. The computing system can place a data point on a map of an estimated location of the location of the first scan and the location of the second scan. |
| US09996819B1 |
Voice programmable automatic identification and data capture devices and system
The proposed invention significantly lowers the burden of electronics data entry, as well as maintenance and configuration of an Automatic identification and data capture (AIDC) system, by making it programmable by voice and using artificial intelligence. Specifically, it proposes an AIDC sensor equipped storage container and AIDC system which can track items equipped with one or more AIDC tags, and any data can be associated, augmented, modified, removed or rewritten by using voice interaction by a user. |
| US09996814B2 |
Transportation service matching with arrival estimation adjusted for external factors
Matches for load or transportation services with transportation service providers (TSPs) are established, and estimated arrival times are provided. A transportation service request is arranged and an estimate of time of arrival is made based on an estimation of a time for performing a delivery of the load or provide the transportation service, and the time of arrival estimate is adjusted by at least one external factor expected to affect transit time. An anticipated turn-around time for availability of the TSP is made for a subsequent leg or backhaul and the adjusted time of arrival estimate and the anticipated turn-around time are used to estimate a time of availability of the TSP for the subsequent leg or backhaul. An accepted bid for the subsequent leg or backhaul is made based on an estimated time of availability. |
| US09996811B2 |
System and method for assessing risk through a social network
A method for assessing risk through a social network includes receiving user social network data, generating a risk map from the user social network data, and calculating a risk assessment based on the risk map and the user social network data. |
| US09996802B2 |
Quantum optical system
An optical system comprising a charged quantum dot having, a charged carrier, first and second ground state levels and a plurality of excited state levels, the first and second ground state energy levels having different spin states such that the said charged carrier cannot transfer between the first and second ground state energy levels without changing its spin state, the system further comprising a controller adapted to control a first radiating beam with energy not more than 100 micro-eV from a first transition within said quantum dot from a first ground state level to a selected excited state level from the plurality of excited state levels to, the system being adapted to enhance the decay rate of a second transition within said quantum dot from the selected excited state level to a second ground state level, but not a first transition, such that a photon is produced due to scattering of a photon from the first radiating beam, wherein the controller is adapted to irradiate the quantum dot with the first radiating beam for a time longer than the radiative lifetime of the selected excited state to produce just one photon, and wherein the first radiating beam comprises at least one pulse. |
| US09996801B2 |
Microwave-free control of a superconductor-based quantum computer
Physical superconducting qubits are controlled according to an “encoded” qubit scheme, where a pair of physical superconducting qubits constitute an encoded qubit that can be controlled without the use of a microwave signal. For example, a quantum computing system has at least one encoded qubit and a controller. Each encoded qubit has a pair of physical superconducting qubits capable of being selectively coupled together. Each physical qubit has a respective tunable frequency. The controller controls a state of each of the pair of physical qubits to perform a quantum computation without using microwave control signals. Rather, the controller uses DC-based voltage or flux pulses. |
| US09996800B2 |
Systems, apparatus, and methods for generating prediction sets based on a known set of features
An individual having a plurality of first features and a second characteristic is identified. A plurality of second features associated with a second characteristic is determined. For each first feature among the plurality of first features, a respective probability distribution indicating, for each respective second feature, a probability that a person having the respective second feature has the first feature, is determined, thereby generating a plurality of probability distributions. A probabilistic classifier is used to combine the plurality of probability distributions, thereby generating a merged probability distribution. A Monte Carlo method is used to generate a prediction set based on the merged probability distribution, the prediction set including a plurality of prediction values for the second characteristic of the individual, each respective prediction value being associated with one of the plurality of second features. The prediction set is stored in a memory. The probabilistic classifier may include a Naïve-Bayes method. Prediction sets may be generated for each of a plurality of individuals, and used to predict a feature associated with a group. For example, an advertisement may be selected and displayed based on the predicted feature. |
| US09996799B2 |
Migrating a legacy system by inferring context-sensitive business rules from legacy source code
A method and associated systems automatically convert source code of a legacy computer program into a target application by generating an intermediary, context-sensitive, business-process model that represents logic of the legacy system. A set of business rules are inferred from the source code. Each rule is modified by a first generation of additional conditions inferred from context of the source code and of the rule. The rule continues to be further refined by successive generations of context-dependent conditions, identifying each generation of conditions from the context of the preceding generation. This procedure repeats until no more levels of context can be identified. The rule is then imported into the business-process model as a logical data structure. Logic represented by the resulting model is used to generate source code of the target application. |
| US09996794B2 |
Reservoir computing device using external-feedback laser system
Various Reservoir Computing systems and a method performed by a Reservoir Computing system are provided. A Reservoir Computing system includes a laser for emitting light. The Reservoir Computing system further includes a mirror for reflecting external feedback light back to the laser. The Reservoir Computing system also includes a modulator for modulating the external feedback light reflected back to the laser. The Reservoir Computing system additionally includes a photo-detector for converting a laser output signal to an electrical signal. |
| US09996792B2 |
Data carrier
The present invention relates to a data carrier, especially a security document, such as an identification card, comprising authentication data comprising personalized data, the data carrier comprising a first side and a second opposite side, and a plurality of layers comprising personalized data, a transparent recording layer, a transparent plastic upper layer and an opaque layer between the recording layer and the upper layer. To make the data carrier very difficult to forge and to enable that it can be manufactured with ordinary machines and without need of expensive materials, the opaque layer comprises a window a first piece of authentication data of said authentication data being divided between said plurality of layers so that the first piece of authentication data is to at least one part thereof, provided above or on the first side of the opaque layer facing the upper layer, at least a rest part of the first piece of authentication data being in the form of laser engraved markings beneath the window and provided in the recording layer, or in a plurality of transparent recording layers of said plurality of layers. |
| US09996790B2 |
Multilayer wiring coupling dual interface card carrier-band module
A multilayer wiring coupling dual interface card carrier tape module is provided, including: a carrier tape base layer, an electrode diaphragm layer, a tuning capacitance layer, a radio-frequency identification coil layer, a bonding pad and a via hole. One surface of the carrier-band base layer is the front surface of the carrier-band module, and the other surface of the carrier-band base layer is the back surface of the carrier-band module. The electrode diaphragm layer and the tuning capacitance layer are located on the front surface of the carrier-band base layer, and the radio-frequency identification coil layer and the bonding pad are located on the back surface of the carrier-band base layer. The bonding pad is arranged according to a pin position of a chip. Hole metallization processing is conducted on the via hole for realizing an electrical connection between the electrode diaphragm layer and the bonding pad. |
| US09996788B2 |
Method and apparatus for producing an electronic device
A method and apparatus for producing an electronic device are disclosed. An adhesive material is jetted in a first pattern on a surface of a receiver substrate. A carrier having a metal foil disposed thereon is brought into contact with the first substrate such that a portion of the metal foil contacts the adhesive material. The adhesive material is activated using at least one of mechanical pressure and heat while the portion of the metal foil is in contact with the adhesive material. The first substrate and the second substrate are separated, whereby the portion of the metal foil is transferred to the first substrate. |
| US09996786B1 |
Method and apparatus for using non-uniform under sampling to achieve a software defined radio for NFC applications
Various embodiments relate to a method and apparatus for a method for under sampling a RF carrier signal, the method including receiving, by an analog digital converter, the RF carrier signal, selecting, by a multiplexer, a clock signal which includes a first clock signal and a second clock signal which are phase shifted, receiving, by the ADC, the clock signal which has a frequency less that the frequency of the RF carrier signal, sampling, by the ADC, the RF carrier signal using the selected clock signal and demodulating, by a digital signal processor, the RF carrier signal into I channel data and Q channel data for I/Q demodulation. |
| US09996784B1 |
Transaction card having an electrically applied coating
A transaction card may comprise a first card component having an electrically conductive surface configured to receive an electrically applied coating. An electrically applied coating may be formed on the electrically conductive surface. The transaction card may be manufactured by forming a first card component having an electrically conductive surface configured to receive an electrically applied coating. The method may also include applying an electrically applied coating to the electrically conductive surface. |
| US09996780B2 |
Specific bar code and forming method of the same
The present disclosure discloses a specific bar code and a forming method of the bar code, comprising: forming without a particular order on the printing stock: at least a one-dimensional bar code and color information and/or grayscale information in an area corresponding to the one-dimensional bar code, which are superimposed on the printing stock, respectively, wherein data information is generated by identifying the color information and the grayscale information; and if acquired by a portable electronic device having an image capture function, identifying the one-dimensional bar code and the color information and/or grayscale information, respectively, wherein a false positive ratio of identifying the one-dimensional bar code is less than 40%. By superimposing colorful background on the one-dimensional bar code, the present disclosure expands the coding capacity and implements one-code-for-one-article identification so as to bring additional values to vendors for applications such as traceability of one code for one article, while maintaining the features of one-dimensional bar code. |
| US09996776B2 |
Printing apparatus, control method for printing apparatus, and storage medium to avoid performing sheet type detection in printing
A printing apparatus includes a detecting unit, a determination unit, a holding unit, and an instruction unit. The detecting unit detects a sheet type of a sheet used for a print job. The determination unit determines, in a case where a cassette is opened, whether the cassette is used for the print job and the print job is suspended because of a sheet empty state. The holding unit holds, in a case where the determination unit determines that the cassette is used for the print job and the print job is suspended because of the sheet empty state, the sheet type detected by the detecting unit. The instruction unit instructs, in a case where printing is restarted, a printer unit to restart printing of the print job using the sheet type held by the holding unit. |
| US09996774B2 |
Printers and methods of controlling same
A method of controlling a printer to print a pattern using a number of print head dies, each print head die including a number of nozzle trenches wherein each one of the number of nozzle trenches is associated with a different color, wherein the nozzles of neighboring dies overlap in respective overlap zones, the method comprising applying masks to the nozzles of neighboring dies in the respective overlap zones to distribute, in the overlap zones, the pattern to be printed between the nozzles of the respective neighboring dies, wherein the masks, in the overlap zones, retain the order in which the nozzles of selected nozzle trenches associated with a selected one of the colors are fired. |
| US09996771B2 |
System and method for procedurally synthesizing datasets of objects of interest for training machine-learning models
A system and method for procedurally synthesizing a training dataset for training a machine-learning model. In one embodiment, the system includes: (1) a training designer configured to describe variations in content of training images to be included in the training dataset and (2) an image definer coupled to the training designer, configured to generate training image definitions in accordance with the variations and transmit the training image definitions: to a 3D graphics engine for rendering into corresponding training images, and further to a ground truth generator for generating associated ground truth corresponding to the training images, the training images and the associated ground truth comprising the training dataset. |
| US09996767B2 |
Methods for automated chart analysis
Methods for analyzing a chart using an electronic computing device are presented, the methods including: causing the electronic computing device to receive a chart image corresponding with the chart, the chart image having recorded chart data; analyzing the recorded chart data, where the analyzing returns at least measurement values corresponding with the recorded chart data; and returning volumetric results of the processing to a user. In some embodiments, the recorded chart data corresponds with data selected from the group consisting of: temperature data, differential pressure data, and static pressure data. In some embodiments, the chart corresponds with a chart integration device or a chart recorder. In some embodiments, methods further include: capturing the chart image with a mobile image capture device. |
| US09996765B2 |
Digital imaging for determining mix ratio of a coating
A method performed by an electronic device includes storing a correlation between spectral data values and mix ratio values of components of a mixture. Spectral data is acquired from a coating, of the mixture, that is applied to a substrate. A mix ratio, of the components that are in the coating, is determined from the acquired spectral data based on the stored correlation. |
| US09996764B2 |
Image matching method based on cascaded binary encoding
An image matching method based on cascaded binary encoding includes using a hashing look-up with multiple hashing tables to coarsely filter candidate key-points in an image to produce a candidate subset of key-points, projecting the candidate subset into a high-dimensional Hamming space, and building a “Hamming distance-memory address” hashing table. An optimal matching key-point is discovered by querying the hashing table. The image matching method has high processing speed and matching quality, which can be used for efficient and accurate image matching. |
| US09996763B2 |
Systems and methods for evaluating suitability of an article for an individual
A computer-implemented method executes instructions for receiving or retrieving image files. A first image file corresponds to both a scaling article image having one or more known dimension(s) and to a target article image submitted by a consumer or a vendor. Contours are determined for each article image to obtain one or more pixel dimension(s) for each article image. The pixel dimension(s) for the scaling article image are related to its known dimension(s) to obtain scaled pixel dimensions for the target article image. A consumer profile is generated which includes at least one of a set of curves that represent the determined contours and a set of control points, measure lines and control lines to represent the measurement of the reference article. Access to the profile facilitates creation of new articles for the consumer and/or assessment of how an article having a similarly derived profile will fit. |
| US09996761B2 |
Image cropping
Briefly, embodiments disclosed herein relate to image cropping, such as for digital images, for example. |
| US09996760B2 |
Optical character recognition of series of images
Systems and methods are described for receiving a current image that partially overlaps with a previous image of a series of images of an original document; performing optical character recognition (OCR) of the current image, producing an OCR text and a corresponding text layout; identifying textual artifacts in the current and previous images, each represented by a sequence of symbols having a frequency of occurrence within the OCR text below a threshold frequency; identifying corresponding base points associated with textual artifacts; identifying parameters of a coordinate transformation converting coordinates of the previous image into coordinates of the current image; associating part of the OCR text with a cluster of symbol sequences, wherein the symbol sequences are produced by processing previously received images; identifying an order of clusters of symbol sequences reflecting a layout of the original document; and producing a resulting OCR text representing a portion of the original document. |
| US09996759B2 |
Method and apparatus for recognizing fingerprint
A method and apparatus for recognizing a fingerprint. The method includes displaying a guide area corresponding to a finger touch in at least one area of a display unit; and providing guide information related to fingerprint recognition based on a touch detected via the guide area. The apparatus includes a display unit configured to display a guide area corresponding to a finger touch in at least one area in a fingerprint mode; an input unit configured to detect a touch input, wherein the input unit is integrally configured with the display unit; a fingerprint scan sensor located in an area adjacent to the guide area of the display unit; and a controller configured to provide guide information related to fingerprint recognition based on a touch detected via the guide area in the fingerprint mode. |
| US09996758B2 |
Biometric sensor for detection of wrist blood vessels in a wrist strap
A biometric sensor apparatus for capturing patterns of blood vessels on the inner side of a wrist. The sensor apparatus has a strap with a near infrared camera mounted on a part of the strap. The camera is arranged for capturing an image of the blood vessels when it is temporarily held at an increased distance from the wrist than when the apparatus is simply being worn by the user. In some embodiments the camera is held at the required position for capturing the images of the blood vessels when the wrist strap is being opened or closed. In some embodiments the camera may be mounted in a deployant clasp of the wrist strap. |
| US09996757B1 |
Apparatuses, systems, and methods for detecting various actions of a vehicle operator
Apparatuses, systems and methods are provided for detecting various actions of a vehicle operator. More particularly, apparatuses, systems and methods are provided for detecting various actions of a vehicle operator based on digital image data. |
| US09996755B2 |
Method and image processing apparatus for image-based object feature description
A method and an image processing apparatus for image-based object feature description are provided. In the method, an object of interest in an input image is detected and a centroid and a direction angle of the object of interest are calculated. Next, a contour of the object of interest is recognized and a distance and a relative angle of each pixel on the contour to the centroid are calculated, in which the relative angle of each pixel is calibrated by using the direction angle. Then, a 360-degree range centered on the centroid is equally divided into multiple angle intervals and the pixels on the contour are separated into multiple groups according to a range covered by each angle interval. Afterwards, a maximum among the distances of the pixels in each group is obtained and used as a feature value of the group. Finally, the feature values of the groups are normalized and collected to form a feature vector that serves as a feature descriptor of the object of interest. |
| US09996754B2 |
Apparatus and method for providing attitude reference for vehicle passengers
An apparatus adapted to provide visual attitude reference to occupants seated in an inboard area of a cabin of a vehicle, that includes at least one interior partition positioned in the cabin in proximity to the occupants and at least one video camera mounted on the vehicle for capturing an electronic image of an environment exterior to the vehicle. At least one video monitor is adapted to serve as a virtual window mounted on the at least one interior partition in a substantially vertical and substantially parallel direction relative to a direction of forward travel of the vehicle in viewing proximity to the occupant, and further adapted to receive the electronic image from the at least one video camera and provide to the occupant an image of the environment external to the vehicle to the occupant. |
| US09996753B2 |
System and method for detecting, tracking, and classifiying objects
The present disclosure provides for a method, device, and computer-readable storage medium for performing a method for discerning a vehicle at an access control point. The method including obtaining a video sequence of the access control point; detecting an object of interest from the video sequence; tracking the object from the video sequence to obtain tracked-object data; classifying the object to obtain classified-object data; determining that the object is a vehicle based on the classified-object data; and determining that the vehicle is present in a predetermined detection zone based on the tracked-object data. |
| US09996752B2 |
Method, system and apparatus for processing an image
A method and system associated with a camera view of a moving-object in a scene. The method comprises detecting and tracking the moving object over multiple video frames, estimating an orientation of the moving object in each of the video frames, and constructing a cost map from the estimated orientations over the multiple video frames for finding a minimum cost path over the cost map. The Method also comprises determining regularized orientation estimates of the moving-object from the minimum cost path, and locating the vanishing point of the camera view based on an axis of the moving-object from the minimum cost path, the axis formed by using the regularized orientation estimates. |
| US09996743B2 |
Methods, systems, and media for detecting gaze locking
Methods, systems, and media for detecting gaze locking are provided. In some embodiments, methods for gaze locking are provided, the methods comprising: receiving an input image including a face; locating a pair of eyes in the face of the input image; generating a coordinate frame based on the pair of eyes; identifying an eye region in the coordinate frame; generating, using a hardware processor, a feature vector based on values of pixels in the eye region; and determining whether the face is gaze locking based on the feature vector. |
| US09996742B2 |
System and method for global identification in a collection of documents
Techniques for machine-based identification of objects extracted from text documents in natural language are disclosed. Text documents with extracted objects are presented in a form of Resource Description Framework (RDF) graphs with the nodes correspondent to the objects and arcs correspondent to the relations between objects. Identification of objects is implemented using specific combinations of patterns which define features of the objects. |
| US09996741B2 |
Systems and methods for classifying objects in digital images captured using mobile devices
In one embodiment, a method includes receiving a digital image captured by a mobile device; and using a processor of the mobile device: generating a first representation of the digital image, the first representation being characterized by a reduced resolution; generating a first feature vector based on the first representation; comparing the first feature vector to a plurality of reference feature matrices; classifying an object depicted in the digital image as a member of a particular object class based at least in part on the comparing; and determining one or more object features of the object based at least in part on the particular object class. Corresponding systems and computer program products are also disclosed. |
| US09996740B2 |
Information processing device, information processing method, program, and information storage medium
The present invention is to provide an information processing device, an information processing method, a program, and an information storage medium with which the accuracy of detection of whether the contact of an object with a subject is present or absent is improved compared with conventional techniques. A frame image acquiring section (32) acquires plural frame images that include a subject region in which an image of a subject appears and are taken at timings different from each other. A subject partial region identifying section (38) identifies, about each of the frame images, plural subject partial regions that are each part of the subject region and are different from each other in the position in the subject region. A partial region feature identifying section (40) identifies partial region features showing variation in an image feature of an image occupying the subject partial region on the basis of the image feature of the image occupying each of the subject partial regions associated with each other in each of the frame images. A contact determining section (42) determines whether the contact of an object with the subject is present or absent on the basis of a relationship among the partial region features each associated with a respective one of plural subject partial regions. |
| US09996739B2 |
System and method for automatic gait cycle segmentation
A computer-implemented system and method for gait analysis of a subject. The method includes obtaining visual data from an image capture device positioned in front of or behind the subject, the plurality of image frames capturing at least one gait cycle of the gait of the subject, detecting one or more prescribed features within the plurality of image frames, analyzing each of the plurality of image frames to detect cross-frame stability of the one or more prescribed features, and segmenting the gait of the subject into at least one gait cycle based at least in part on the detected cross-frame stability of the one or more prescribed features. |
| US09996738B2 |
System and method for controlling a terminal device
A control system includes a housing engaged to a mounting surface, a sensor contained within the housing, a server in communication with the sensor, and a terminal device in communication with the server. A gesture by a user associated with the mounting surface controls activity of the terminal device, such as a knock on a wall lowering a thermostat. The control system enables a mounting surface independent from the terminal device to become a controller for the terminal device. The sensor forms an interactive zone, and a contact interaction with the mounting surface within the interactive zone is detected by the sensor as data signals. The server receives the data signals, determines a data pattern corresponding to the data signals, and matches the data pattern with a gesture profile. The gesture profile is associated with a command transmitted to the terminal device to control activity of the terminal device. |
| US09996734B2 |
Tagging visual media on a mobile device
This document describes techniques enabling tagging of visual media on a mobile device. In some cases the techniques determine, based on meeting a threshold of manual tagging of a person or object, to “bulk” tag visual media stored on the mobile device. Thus, the techniques can present, in rapid succession, photos and videos with the recognized person or object to enable the user to quickly and easily confirm or reject the recognition. Also, the techniques can present numerous faces for recognized persons or sub-images for recognized objects on a display at one time, thereby enabling quick and easy confirmation or rejection of the recognitions. |
| US09996730B2 |
Vision-assist systems adapted for inter-device communication session
Vision-assist systems including user eye tracking cameras are disclosed. A vision-assist system includes a processor, a memory module communicatively coupled to the processor, a user eye tracking camera communicatively coupled to the processor, an environment camera communicatively coupled to the processor, a feedback device communicatively coupled to the processor, and machine readable instructions stored in the memory module that, when executed by the processor, cause the vision-assist system to receive environment image data from the environment camera, determine a location of an individual speaking to a user based on the environment image data, receive user eye tracking image data from the user eye tracking camera, determine a pose of the user's eyes based on the user eye tracking image data, and provide feedback to the user with the feedback device based on the location of the individual speaking to the user and the pose of the user's eyes. |
| US09996729B2 |
Quantitative structural assay of a nerve graft
Techniques are described for determining the quality of a nerve graft by assessing quantitative structural characteristics of the nerve graft. Aspects of the techniques include obtaining an image identifying laminin-containing tissue in the nerve graft; creating a transformed image using a transformation function of an image processing application on the image; using an analysis function of the image processing application, analyzing the transformed image to identify one or more structures in accordance with one or more recognition criteria; and determining one or more structural characteristics of the nerve graft derived from a measurement of the one or more structures. |
| US09996726B2 |
Feature identification using an RGB-NIR camera pair
Disclosed are systems, apparatus, devices, methods, computer program media and products, and other implementations, including a method that includes capturing an RGB image of a hand of a person, capturing a near infrared (NIR) image of the hand, and determining geometrical features of the hand based on the captured RGB and NIR images. In some embodiments, determining the geometrical features may include determining from extracted image data for the hand one or more values representative of relative spatial features for the hand such as one or more of, for example an angle between a first pair of two fingers in the extracted image data for the hand, and/or a relative distance or length for a second pair of fingers in the extracted image data for the hand. In some embodiments, the method may further include determining identity of the person based on the determined geometrical features of the hand. |
| US09996723B2 |
Methods of storing a set of biometric data templates and of matching biometrics, biometric matching apparatus and computer program
There is provided a method of storing a set of biometric data templates, which emanates from a biometric object, among a plurality of biometric data templates, wherein each biometric data template comprises biometric data from only a part of a biometric object. The method comprises aligning biometric data templates with each other in view of the biometric object of the plurality of biometric data templates which comprises partially overlapping biometric data with at least one other biometric data template; determining the set of biometric data templates to be stored; and storing the set of biometric data templates. The determining of the set of biometric data templates to be stored comprises assigning a matrix of cells covering at least partially the aligned biometric data templates; determining, for each of the aligned biometric data templates, cells comprising distinguishable biometric data; and determining a combination of biometric data templates which comprises an amount of cells comprising distinguishable biometric data which fulfil a predetermined criterion. A method of biometric matching is also disclosed, and also a biometric matching apparatus and a computer program. |
| US09996720B2 |
Indicia reading terminal processing plurality of frames of image data responsively to trigger signal activation
There is described a decodable indicia reading terminal which in one embodiment can capture and process a certain (e.g., a first) and a subsequent (e.g., a second) frame of image data, wherein the certain and the subsequent frames have different imaging attributes. In one embodiment the attributes between certain and subsequent frames are differentiated in that the certain frame represents light incident on pixels of a first image sensor and the subsequent frame of image data represents light incident on pixels of a second image sensor spaced apart from the first image sensor. |
| US09996719B1 |
Optical polling platform methods, apparatuses and media
An image associated with a poll may be acquired via a camera. One or more symbols indicating responses may be found by analyzing the image. The responses specified by the symbols may be determined and saved. The responses may also be displayed to the operator and/or to the respondents. |
| US09996718B2 |
Tag carriers and assemblies for RFID tags
Carriers and carrier assemblies for use in apparatus, such as tools, are provided. A carrier assembly generally includes a carrier and an RFID tag which may be coupled to the carrier. The carrier assembly may be inserted at least partially into a bore in an apparatus and removably coupled to the apparatus at least partially within the bore. The carrier may advantageously increase the range at which RFID signals transmitted to and/or from the RFID tag may be detected, either by the RFID tag or an RFID reader. |
| US09996717B2 |
Interrogator and interrogation system employing the same
The present invention is directed to an interrogator, method of discerning metal and radio frequency identification (RFID) objects, and an interrogation system employing the same. In one embodiment, the interrogator includes a metal sensing subsystem configured to provide a first signal having a signature representing a presence of a metal object, and a RFID sensing subsystem configured to provide a second signal having a signature representing a presence of a RFID object. The interrogator also includes a control and processing subsystem configured to discern a presence of at least one of the metal and RFID objects from one of the first and second signals. |
| US09996716B2 |
Modulation index (depth) based grouping, addressing, and fingerprinting RFID tags
A method of addressing one or more RFID devices within a group of RFID devices includes transmitting a command to respond to the group at a first modulation depth. The method further includes receiving a response from a first sub-group of RFID devices in the group that have a minimum modulation depth less than or equal to the first modulation depth. The method further includes transmitting the command to respond to the group at a second modulation depth higher than the first modulation depth. The method further includes receiving a response from a second sub-group of RFID devices within the group that have a minimum modulation depth less than or equal to the second modulation depth. The method is also directed to authenticating RFIDs by comparing a measured minimum modulation depth to a known minimum modulation depth. |
| US09996712B2 |
Self test device and method for wireless sensor reader
Disclosed is a self-test device and method for assessing the functional performance of a reader device that is configured to interface with a wireless sensor. The self-test device may be configured to analyze the accuracy of a signal transmitted from the reader device or the accuracy of a signal received by the reader device. In one embodiment, the reader device may be configured to engage the self-test device to allow the reader to transmit a signal, such as a short pulse of energy or a short burst of radio frequency energy to cause the self-test device to output a resonant signal. The self-test device may receive the transmit signal from the reader and evaluate it against predetermined values. The evaluated signals may be used to assess the accuracy of the transmit signal of the reader device to identify potential calibration issues and initiate remedial action by an automated system or human intervention if needed. The self-test device may be built into a docking station where the reader is placed when not in use. |
| US09996708B2 |
SMS4 acceleration processors having encryption and decryption mapped on a same hardware
A processing system includes a processing core and a hardware accelerator communicatively coupled to the processing core. The hardware accelerator includes a data register having a plurality of data bits and a key register having a plurality of key bits. The hardware accelerator also includes a data mode selector module to select one of an encrypt mode or a decrypt mode for processing the plurality of data bits. The hardware accelerator further includes a key mode selector module to select one of the encrypt mode or the decrypt mode for processing the plurality of key bits. |
| US09996705B2 |
Determining potential sharing of private data associated with a private network domain to improve data security
Techniques for determining potential sharing of private data are described herein. The techniques may include identifying content having computer readable access rules associated with a private domain of a social network, and identifying private data of the content. A potential share of the content outside of the private domain is detected and a search of the potential share to determine whether the potential share is associated with the private data is performed. The techniques may also include detecting a match between the potential share and the private data. |
| US09996703B2 |
Computer device and method for controlling access to a resource via a security system
A computer system 300 contains an agent 303 which modifies the ordinary behaviour of a native security system 103, such as to allow security decisions with alternate granularity or an alternate set of access rights. The agent 303 intercepts authorisation requests made by applications 109 for resources 110 identified by URIs 111 and sends amended requests to the security system 103. An alternate authorisation mechanism 307 of the agent 303 is invoked by the security system 103, whereupon the agent 303 may selectively allow or deny the request according to the originally presented URI 111. |
| US09996700B2 |
Method and system for corrupting unwanted data in a communications stream
A system, method, and computer program for monitoring and corrupting a data stream, includes a data stream transmitting device having a barcode scanner that transmits a stream of data corresponding to a scanned barcode; a data stream receiver device having a barcode processing system that receives the stream; and a monitoring and corrupting device coupled therebetween having a database storing rules for detecting and corrupting patterns of data in the stream, and which monitors the stream, and based on the rules determines if the stream is unwanted, and if so corrupts the stream and transmits the corrupted stream to the barcode processing system so that the barcode data stream cannot be correctly received by the data stream receiver device. Otherwise, if the stream of data is wanted, the stream of data is allowed to be correctly received by the data stream receiver device. |
| US09996696B2 |
Systems and methods to optimize execution of a software program using a type based self assembling control flow graph
Using various embodiments, methods and systems to optimize the execution of a software program are disclosed. In one embodiment, a system is configured to identify a first vertex of an indirect control flow graph (ICFG) of a control flow graph (CFG) of the software program representing an indirect control transfer to a first function in the software program. Thereafter, a first type signature associated with the indirect control transfer is determined and a first tag value from the first type signature is computed. The system also identifies a second vertex of the ICFG representing a second function of the software program and determines a second type signature of the second function to compute a second tag value from the second type signature. When it is determined that the first tag value equals to the second tag value, the system modifies the CFG to optimize execution of the software program. |
| US09996692B2 |
Method and system for using principal components analysis (PCA) to display trends in aircraft cyber events in real time
A system, method, and computer readable media for using principal components analysis (PCA) to graphically display cyber event information about an aircraft or fleet of aircraft. A ground-based security module collects historical cyber log data about the aircraft and performs PCA on the historical data to derive two principal components and their corresponding loading vectors. The loading vectors are transmitted to an air-based security module on the aircraft. The air-based security module collects real time cyber log data, computes numerical scores associated with the loading vectors on board the aircraft while the aircraft is in flight, and transmits the numerical scores to the ground-based module. The ground-based module graphically displays a comparison of the numerical scores to the corresponding loading vectors for the historical log data on a biplot to reveal trends in the cyber health of the aircraft. |
| US09996691B1 |
Using signals from developer clusters
Systems and techniques are provided for the mining signals from developer clusters in an application ecosystem and the creation of rules to proactively ban applications when they are submitted to the application ecosystem. Applications may be received. Each application may be associated with a developer account that submitted the application to an application ecosystem. Signals may be extracted for one of the applications from one of the applications and the developer accounts. A banned prevalence percentage may be determined for the signal. A signal rule may be generated from the signal based on the banned prevalence percentage for the signal. The signal rule may be stored. |
| US09996690B2 |
Binary translation of a trusted binary with input tagging
In an example, a computing device includes a trusted execution environment (TEE), including an enclave. The enclave may include both a binary translation engine (BTE) and an input verification engine (IVE). In one embodiment, the IVE receives a trusted binary as an input, and analyzes the trusted binary to identify functions, classes, and variables that perform input/output operations. To ensure the security of these interfaces, those operations may be performed within the enclave. The IVE tags the trusted binary and provides the binary to the BTE. The BTE then translates the trusted binary into a second format, including designating the tagged portion for execution within the enclave. The BTE may also sign the new binary in the second format and export it out of the enclave. |
| US09996683B2 |
Physiological response pin entry
Methods and systems are provided for facilitating the secure entry of a user's PIN for electronic transactions such as merchant checkout, payment authorization, or access authorization. A physiological response of the user can indicate which one of a random sequence of numbers is a number of the user's PIN. For example, the user can blink, wink, or make a subtle facial movement to provide the indication. |
| US09996682B2 |
Detecting and preventing illicit use of device
Illicit use of devices, and misappropriation of the data on those devices, may be prevented by detecting patterns of behavior that suggest illicit use, and by taking action when such illicit use is detected. A device may store information that describes suspicious patterns of use, and may also store information that describes normal patterns of use of known legitimate users. If current use of the device matches a suspicious pattern of use, and if the user of the device cannot be confirmed to be a known legitimate user, then action may be taken, such as locking the device's user interface, shutting down the device's communication facilities, issuing a warning message, sending a communication, or any other action. |
| US09996676B2 |
Associating an information reader and a medical device
A device agent including an information accessor for accessing association information obtained via an information reader. The association information includes medical device information for uniquely identifying the medical device, and device agent information for facilitating in an association between the medical device and the information reader. The device agent also includes an associator for associating the medical device and the information reader based on the association information. |
| US09996675B2 |
Method to assign word class information
An assignment device (1) assigns word class information (WKI) to one or more words of text information (ETI). Based on word-class sequence information (WK-AI) formed from this assigned word class information (WKI), actions (A) are executed in order to notify the user of conflicts or to provide the user with background information (HI) relating to words in the text information (TT). |
| US09996674B2 |
Web site providing cosmetic and nutrition regimen from color images
A cosmetic regimen and/or a nutrition regimen is outputted almost instantly to a user who transmits a digital color image, preferably video, of the surface tissue, for example at the face of a human to a web site. The regimen is custom tailored to the surface tissue type of the subject. The surface tissue type is based on value ranges of multiple surface tissue bioparameters, such as surface tissue moisture, surface tissue collagen levels, surface tissue pH and surface tissue sun sensitivity. The system may track changes in the surface tissue parameters between one digital color image provided by a user at one time and a further digital color image provided later. |
| US09996670B2 |
Clinical content analytics engine
Clinical content analytics engines and associated processes are described. An engine receives a clinical decision support document, accesses corresponding reference content, identifies and extracts medical intervention content from the clinical decision support document, segments extracted medical intervention content into a first plurality of segments including at least a first segment comprising a first set of text, determines if the first segment corresponds to at least a first item included in the reference content, the first item comprising a second set of text comprising terminology different than that found in the first set of text, and in response to determining that the first segment corresponds to the first item included in the reference content, causing a report to include an indication that the first segment corresponds to the first item included in the reference content. |
| US09996666B1 |
Physician scheduling systems for matching medical providers and patients
In one embodiment, a matching-engine system may receive a set of physician-selection parameters from an administrator. The physician-selection parameters may comprise a range of acceptable performance-scores and experience-scores for physicians. The matching-engine system may receive, from a user, a search query comprising a geographic location of the user, a preferred date and time for an appointment, and a user-specified symptom or a user-specified treatment. A first set of physicians may be determined based on a geographic location of each physician, a performance-score associated with the physician with respect to a base-concept associated with the search query, and an experience-score associated with the physician with respect to the base-concept. A second set of physicians is identified from the first set based on one or more physician preferences, the preferred date and time, and an indication of whether the physician is available at the preferred date and time. |
| US09996664B2 |
Systems and methods for translating messages between a healthcare entity and a vendor entity
An inbound message including medical record content may be received. The inbound message may indicate a healthcare entity and a vendor entity. It may be determined, from the healthcare entity and stored correspondences between medical record formats and healthcare entities, that the medical record content of the inbound message is in a first medical record format. Which configuration record of stored configuration records specifying combinations of sets of rules may be determined to apply as a translation to the inbound message based upon the medical record content of the inbound message and the first medical record format. The sets of rules as indicated by the configuration record may be accessed and applied to the inbound message to translate the medical record content in the inbound message from the first medical record format to the standardized format. The standardized format may be transmitted to the vendor entity. |
| US09996661B2 |
Methods, systems, and software for identifying functional bio-molecules
The present invention generally relates to methods of rapidly and efficiently searching biologically-related data space. More specifically, the invention includes methods of identifying bio-molecules with desired properties, or which are most suitable for acquiring such properties, from complex bio-molecule libraries or sets of such libraries. The invention also provides methods of modeling sequence-activity relationships. As many of the methods are computer-implemented, the invention additionally provides digital systems and software for performing these methods. |
| US09996658B2 |
Method of manufacturing a semiconductor device
A method for manufacturing a semiconductor device includes obtaining a design layout for a target layer of an optical proximity correction process, the design layout including a first block and a second block being a repetition block of the first block, dividing the design layout into a plurality of patches, performing the optical proximity correction process on the patches of the first block, applying corrected patches of the first block to the patches of the second block, respectively, forming a correction layout by performing the optical proximity correction process on boundary patches of the second block, fabricating a photomask corresponding to the correction layout, and forming patterns on a substrate corresponding to the photomask. Each of the patches is a standard unit on which the optical proximity correction process is performed. |
| US09996657B2 |
Systems and methods for generating a multiple patterning lithography compliant integrated circuit layout
Computer-implemented systems and methods for generating a multiple patterning lithography (MPL) compliant integrated circuit layout are provided. A plurality of integrated circuit (IC) cells are assembled to form an IC layout. The IC layout includes at least two IC cells that abut one another. After the assembling of the IC cells, a decomposition algorithm is executed to assign multiple colors to design shapes within the IC layout. Multiple patterning coloring conflicts are detected in the IC layout after the assigning of the colors to the design shapes. A fixing algorithm is executed, under which a conflict present in two abutting IC cells is fixed by flipping or shifting at least one of the abutting IC cells. |
| US09996654B2 |
Transistor plasma charging evaluator
A computer-implemented method capable of evaluating a plasma-induced charging effect to a transistor in a plasma-based process for a dielectric layer performed above the transistor on which a metal layer is formed is provided. The method may include receiving parameters relating to the transistor, receiving parameters relating to an interconnection, receiving parameters relating to the plasma-based process, assigning first potentials to terminals of the transistor, calculating second potentials at the terminals of the transistor, and determining a degradation state of the transistor according to the second potentials at the terminals of the transistor. |
| US09996652B2 |
Incremental register retiming of an integrated circuit design
A first circuit design description may have registers and combinational gates. Circuit design computing equipment may perform register retiming on the first circuit design description, whereby registers are moved across combinational gates during a first circuit design implementation. An engineering-change-order (ECO) of the first circuit design may result in a second circuit design. The differences between the first and second circuit designs may be confined to a region-of-change. The circuit design computing equipment may preserve the results from the first circuit design implementation and re-use portions of these results during the implementation of the second circuit design. For example, the circuit design computing equipment may preserve the register retiming solution from the first circuit design implementation for portions of the second circuit design that are outside the region-of-change and incrementally create graphs that allow to incrementally solve the register retiming problem during the second circuit design implementation. |
| US09996648B2 |
Netlist editing of graphical data
The present disclosure relates to customization of a circuit layout using information from a netlist, and more particularly, to customization of a circuit layout using embedded formulas and a netlist. The system includes a CPU, a computer readable memory, and a computer readable storage device. The system also includes first program instructions to generate a graphical layout of a circuit, second program instructions to place a text formula on the graphical layout of the circuit, and third program instructions to activate the text formula in order to customize the graphical layout of the circuit. The first program instructions, the second program instructions, and the third program instructions of the system are stored on the computer readable storage device for execution by the CPU via the computer readable memory. |
| US09996644B2 |
Solver for hardware based computing
Full-AC load flow constitutes a core computation in power system analysis. A performance gain with a hardware implementation of a sparse-linear solver using a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is achieved by use of a DC network emulation of the power system bus. Analog Behavioral Models (ABMs) are used in an efficient strategy for designing analog emulation engines for large-scale power system computation. A generator model is also developed using analog circuits for load flow emulation for power system analysis to reduce computation time. The generator model includes reconfigurable parameters using operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs). The circuit module is used with other reconfigurable circuits, i.e., transmission lines and loads. |
| US09996643B2 |
Integrated circuit modeling method using resistive capacitance information
A method of modeling an integrated circuit comprises generating a schematic of an integrated circuit comprising a first circuit component. The schematic comprises a first representation of the first circuit component. The method also comprises replacing the first representation with a second representation of the first circuit component. The second representation includes resistive capacitance information (RC) for the first circuit component. The RC information is based on first RC data included in a process design kit (PDK) file and second RC data included in a macro device file. The second RC data is based on a relationship between the first circuit component and a second circuit component. The method further comprises selectively coloring the second representation of the first circuit component in the schematic based on the RC information. The coloring of the second representation is indicative of whether the integrated circuit is in compliance with a design specification. |
| US09996641B2 |
Thermal simulation device and method for integrated circuits
A thermal simulation device for an integrated circuit according to the disclosure comprises a thermal analysis unit and a mesh size analysis unit. The thermal analysis unit performs a thermal analysis of the integrated circuit to obtain temperatures of the center point and boundary of each function block. The mesh size analysis unit determines the cell number in the mesh of each function block. The thermal analysis unit computes a temperature of the center point and boundary of each cell in every function block according to the temperatures of the boundary of each function block. |
| US09996632B2 |
Processing a stream of tuples
A stream of tuples may be processed by receiving at a first stream operator a first tuple from a stream of tuples. In response to receiving the first tuple, port mutability conditions for a first stream operator and a second stream operator may be analyzed. In response to identifying the port mutability conditions for a first stream operator and a second stream operator, a first set of attribute mutability conditions for the first tuple received at the first stream operator may be identified. Based on the first set of attribute mutability conditions, a reference of an attribute from the first tuple may be generated where the reference is added to a second tuple passing from the first stream operator to the second stream operator. |
| US09996627B2 |
Point of presence distribution mechanism for digital content objects
Particular embodiments of the present invention are related to a point-of-presence distribution system mechanism facilitating distribution and use of digital content, ad content and revenue generation opportunities. |
| US09996625B2 |
Policy based population of genealogical archive data
An approach for managing a family tree archive is provided. The approach includes creating an electronic archive based on a family tree. The approach also includes automatically discovering Internet-based data associated with at least one member of the family tree. The approach additionally includes adding the Internet-based data to the archive. The approach further includes storing the archive at a storage device. |
| US09996624B2 |
Surfacing in-depth articles in search results
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for performing actions of determining that one or more in-depth article search results are to be provided in response to a query, obtaining a topicality score for each in-depth article of a plurality of in-depth articles, each topicality score indicating a degree of relevance of a respective in-depth article to the query, obtaining a document score for each in-depth article of the plurality of in-depth article, each document score being based on a respective topicality score and a respective in-depth article score, selecting one or more in-depth articles from the plurality of in-depth articles based on respective document scores, and providing the one or more in-depth article search results for display, each in-depth article search result representing an in-depth article of the one or more in-depth articles. |
| US09996621B2 |
System and method for retrieving internet pages using page partitions
A system for and method for providing pages, more specifically a system includes a server configured to receive a query and an engine that is able to retrieve a set of pages by first retrieving a partition that contains them. |
| US09996617B2 |
Methods and systems for searching logical patterns
Methods and systems for searching logical patterns in voluminous multi sensor data from the industrial internet is provided. The method retrieves instances of patterns in time-series data where patterns are specified logically, using a sequence of symbols. The logical symbols used are a subset of the qualitative abstractions specifically, the concepts of steady, increasing, decreasing. Patterns can include symbol-sequences for multiple sensors, approximate duration as well as slope values for each symbol. To facilitate efficient querying, each sensor time-series is pre-processed into a sequence of logical symbols. Each position in the resulting compressed sequence is registered across a TRIE-based index structure corresponding to the multiple logical patterns it may belong to. Logical multi-sensor patterns are efficiently retrieved and ranked using such a structure. This method of indexing and searching provides an efficient mechanism for exploratory analysis of voluminous multi-sensor data. |
| US09996613B2 |
System and method for accessibility assessment of a web application
System and method for accessibility testing of a web application is disclosed. Initially the system is configured to receive an accessibility standard and a level of conformance to be achieved for accessibility testing of a webpage associated with the web application. The system is further configured to identify a first set of an accessibility guidelines based on the accessibility standard and the level of conformance. The system further identifies a set of elements present in the webpage and determines a second set of the accessibility guidelines based upon the set of elements and a set of common guidelines applicable to all the webpage's of the web application. Furthermore, the system computes a number of occurrences of each element from the set of elements present in the webpage. Further, the system is configured to determine the time required for testing the web page using different combinations of testing tools by using an optimization engine based on the second set of accessibility guidelines, the level of conformance, and the number of occurrences of the element of each type in the webpage. Further the system enables performing a rule based analysis on the time required for testing the webpage using different combination of testing tools in order to determine a combination of accessibility testing tools to be used for accessibility testing of the web application. |
| US09996610B1 |
Protocol based user data management
An embodiment of the invention may include a method, computer program product, and system for data management. The embodiment may include receiving a login token and instruction from a user device. The login token is associated with a user of the user device. The instruction may be reading or writing profile data belonging to the user. The embodiment may include determining whether a user profile container exists for the user based on the received login token. The embodiment may include creating the user profile container for the user based on determining that the user profile container does not exist. Creating the user profile container for the user may include identifying profile data belonging to the user located in a plurality of locations within a file system and storing identified profile data belonging to the user within a single binary large object. The embodiment may include executing the received instruction. |
| US09996607B2 |
Entity resolution between datasets
Described herein are methods, systems and computer program products for entity resolution. Entity resolution, also known as entity matching or record linkage, seeks to identify equivalent data objects between or among datasets. An example method includes creating a deterministic model by defining an entity to be resolved, selecting two datasets for comparison, defining matching predicates for attributes of the datasets to select a set of candidate matches, and defining a precedence rule for the candidate matches to select a subset of the candidate matches. The method includes running the deterministic model on the two datasets. Running the deterministic model includes applying the matching predicates and the precedence rule to data in the datasets that correspond to the attributes. The method also includes applying a cardinality rule to results of the running, and outputting the matching candidates for which the cardinality rule is satisfied. |
| US09996606B2 |
Method for determining condition of category division of key performance indicator, and computer and computer program therefor
Embodiments include determining a condition of category division of a key performance indicator. Aspects include dividing multiple pieces of workflow execution information into a division number for the type of the key performance indicator and generating a graph for each of the multiple groups after the division, from workflow execution information belonging to the group. Aspects also include calculating graph edit distances for respective two arbitrary graphs and generating a new group by merging two graphs having the shortest graph edit distance. Aspects further include calculating a graph edit distance for the new group and repeating the generation of the new group and the calculation of the graph edit distance for the new group, until the graph edit distance is equal to or more than a certain fixed edit distance. |
| US09996604B2 |
Generating usage report in a question answering system based on question categorization
A mechanism is provided in a question answering system for generating a usage report based on question categorization. The mechanism clusters documents from a corpus of documents to form a nested structure of clusters of documents. The mechanism record questions answered by question answering system in a database in association with answers returned and answer confidence values. The mechanism maps the questions to the nested structure of clusters of documents to form a nested structure of clusters of questions. The mechanism generates a usage report based on the nested structure of clusters of questions and presenting the usage report responsive to a requesting user. |
| US09996600B1 |
Asynchronous communication of transaction data to clients
Techniques are described for asynchronous communication of transaction data to client processes. A transaction request may be sent from a client process to a contract engine, which may perform multiple service calls to network services to generate transaction data for the transaction. The transaction data may be stored in an aggregate contract data object, and provided asynchronously to the client process for presentation via a user interface such as an e-commerce application. In some cases, the client process may, subsequently to the initial transaction request, send one or more requests for portions of the transaction data. Such requests may be sent asynchronously with respect to the initial transaction request. In some cases, the client process may provide callback information specifying a network location to which transaction data may be asynchronously communicated after it has been generated. |
| US09996593B1 |
Parallel processing framework
Data can be processed in parallel across a cluster of nodes using a parallel processing framework. Using Web services calls between components allows the number of nodes to be scaled as necessary, and allows developers to build applications on the framework using a Web services interface. A job scheduler works together with a queuing service to distribute jobs to nodes as the nodes have capacity, such that jobs can be performed in parallel as quickly as the nodes are able to process the jobs. Data can be loaded efficiently across the cluster, and levels of nodes can be determined dynamically to process queries and other requests on the system. |
| US09996592B2 |
Query relationship management
A query relationship data structure (RELSTRUCT) generator configured to select a plurality of queries, each query structured for application against a database to yield a query result. The RELSTRUCT generator includes a query analyzer configured to identify query parts of individual queries, and determine for each query, a relation, if any, of an included query part to any query part of remaining queries of the plurality of queries. The RELSTRUCT generator also may create, for each query, a query relationship data structure in which the query is related to at least one other query of the plurality of queries, based on the determined relation of a query part of the query and a query part of the at least one other query of the plurality of queries. |
| US09996590B2 |
System and method for identifying miscategorization
A categorization analysis system is provided. The categorization analysis system includes one or more hardware processors, a memory including a first plurality of listings categorized in a first target category, and a categorization analysis engine executing on the one or more hardware processors. The categorization analysis engine is configured to determine a label for each listing including performing a search on title, select a set of training listings based on the determined labels, train a first model using the set of training listings and the determined labels, the first model being a classification model configured to classify categorization of listings, identify a suspect listing categorized in the first target category, apply the suspect listing to the first model, thereby generating a categorization result for the suspect listing, the categorization result indicating miscategorization of the suspect listing, and identify the suspect listing in the memory as miscategorized. |
| US09996589B2 |
Holistic federated ranking algorithm
Techniques are disclosed for generating a unified ranking of search results received from a plurality of distinct search resources. A computing system executing a federated search application receives a set of ranked search results from multiple search resources (e.g., web-based search engines, public databases and catalogs, etc.). Each search result identifies an item and includes metadata characterizing the item. The federated search application determines a unified ranking for the items identified in the search results that preserves a relative ranking of each set of items, such that a result for a given item is ranked above other results for items in the associated set of items is ranked above the other results in the unified ranking. |
| US09996588B2 |
Managing a search
A method and system for managing a search is disclosed. The method and system can include receiving a set of first results from a first query. A set of categories can be identified based on the set of first results. The method and system can include generating a set of second results using a second query having at least a portion of the first query, at least a portion of the first results, and at least a portion of the set of categories. The method and system can also include scoring the set of second results based upon a relationship of the first query, the second query, and the set of second results. |
| US09996587B1 |
Systems and methods for obtaining segment specific feedback
Systems and methods are provided for obtaining feedback associated with specific segments of a work. In some embodiments, a content provider may make one or more segments of the work available to commentators to provide feedback associated with a particular segment. The feedback may include ratings and/or comments. In some embodiments, feedback scores may be calculated using the feedback. Alternatively or additionally, content providers and/or other commentators may evaluate feedback provided by commentators. These evaluations may be used to calculate a commentator reputation score. Some feedback scores may be based at least in part on commentator reputation scores. In some embodiments, comparisons of feedback may be generated. For example, the comparisons may be based at least in part on feedback associated with one or more segments that is filtered based on demographic criteria that divide commentators into groups. |
| US09996585B2 |
Supplementing a tuple with a derived value
A stream of tuples are processed by a plurality of processing elements, each including one or more stream operators, operating on computer processors. A method determines whether a first stream operator includes a first operation that is deterministic and whether a second stream operator includes a second operation that is equivalent to the first operation. In response to determining that the first operation is deterministic and the second operation is equivalent to the first operation, the first stream operator is configured to include in a tuple output from the first stream operator a result of performing the first operation using a first input. The second stream operator, which uses a second input when performing the second operation, determines whether the second input is the same as the first input, and uses the result in lieu of performing the second operation when the first and second inputs are the same. |
| US09996580B2 |
System, method, and computer-readable medium for costing user-defined functions and methods in a database management system
A system, method, and computer-readable medium for the calculation of execution time estimates of user defined functions/user defined methods are provided. The execution of a UDF or UDM is timed several times at the time of the UDF/UDM creation, and an average execution time of the UDF/UDM is obtained. The resulting average execution time is then stored in a data dictionary where the optimizer may consult this value to factor it into the cost of execution of a query. |
| US09996577B1 |
Systems and methods for graphically filtering code call trees
In an embodiment, a method includes accessing a call tree for a transaction, wherein the call tree traces routines called during execution of the transaction. The method further includes generating a graphical representation of the call tree in relation to two or more performance properties. In addition, the method includes causing the graphical representation of the call tree to be displayed. Further, the method includes allowing a user to graphically select a group of routines from the graphical representation of the call tree. In addition, the method includes creating a filtered call tree comprising the graphically selected group of routines. Furthermore, the method includes generating a drill-down visualization of the filtered call tree. The method also includes causing the drill-down visualization to be displayed. |
| US09996574B2 |
Enhancements for optimizing query executions
In an approach for optimizing query executions a processor receives a request to transfer data from a first table to a second table. A processor detects a relationship between the first table and the second table, wherein the relationship is based on a similarity between the first table and the second table. A processor identifies at least a first access path for transferring the data from the first table to the second table. A processor calculates a first cost of transferring the data from the first table to the second table using the first access path based on the similarity between the first table and the second table, wherein the first cost indicates estimated processor usage to transfer the data. |
| US09996571B2 |
Storing and executing a search on log data and data obtained from a real-time monitoring environment
Methods and apparatus consistent with the invention provide the ability to organize, index, search, and present time series data based on searches. Time series data are sequences of time stamped records occurring in one or more usually continuous streams, representing some type of activity. In one embodiment, time series data is stored as discrete events time stamps. A search is received and relevant event information is retrieved based in whole or in part on the time stamp, a keyword indexing mechanism, or statistical indices calculated at the time of the search. |
| US09996569B2 |
Index traversals utilizing alternate in-memory search structure and system memory costing
In searching an index in an original search structure for a database, portion(s) of the index are determined to be stored in a memory in an alternate search structure. The alternate search structure with the portion(s) is created and stored in the memory. The index is searched by traversing the alternate search structure and possibly the original search structure. The alternate search structure may be traversed more efficiently than the original search structure. The number of portions of the index may be a tunable parameter or selected based on a performance improvement/expense ratio. The search of the index begins at the alternate search structure. During traversal of the one or more portions in the alternate search structure, if traversal is to continue at a portion in the original search structure, the identity of this portion is obtained. The traversal is continued at this identified portion in the original search structure. |
| US09996568B2 |
Index maintenance based on a comparison of rebuild vs. update
A method, system and computer program product for index maintenance in a computer system comprising a plurality of nodes, a database, and an index to the database. In one embodiment, the method comprises, for a defined period of time, building a snapshot of selected change requests received by the nodes to change the database. After this defined period of time, a selection is made, based on specified criteria, whether to rebuild a new index to the database, or to add entries to a current index. When the selection is to rebuild a new index, the new index is rebuilt based on data in the database and in the change requests in the snapshot. When the selection is to add entries to a current index, entries are added to the current index based on data in the database and in the change requests in the snapshot. |
| US09996563B2 |
Efficient full delete operations
In an approach for processing data in a database management system, a processor performs a delete operation on a first data container, wherein the first data container includes one or more data records and wherein the delete operation logically deletes at least one data record of the one or more data records. A processor associates a time of the performed delete operation with the first data container. A processor performs a write operation on a first data record of the first data container. A processor associates a time of the performed write operation with the first data record of the first data container. Responsive to receiving a database query directed at the first data container, a processor grants access to the first data record of the first data container based on, at least, the time of the performed write operation being chronologically after the time of the performed delete operation. |
| US09996560B1 |
Template mapping system for non-compliant collectors
A system may include one or more devices to receive a flow record. The one or more devices may identify a type of the flow record. The one or more devices may parse the flow record for a template identifier (ID) if the type of the flow record is a data record. The one or more devices may further compare the template ID from the data record to a predetermined template ID identifying a data record of template IDs. The one or more devices may identify the data record as a data record of template IDs if the template ID matches the predetermined template ID. The one or more devices may further generate a map associating template IDs, from the data record of template IDs, to template information for decoding and/or interpreting data records. The one or more devices may store the map. |
| US09996559B2 |
Maintenance actions and user-specific settings of the attribute value derivation instruction set user interface
A method, a system, and a computer program product for performing maintenance actions and user-specific settings of the attribute value derivation instructions set user interface are disclosed. A maintenance function is provided for changing a target attribute data value corresponding to a source attribute stored in a hierarchical data model. An instruction corresponding to the source attribute is also provided. Using the maintenance function, the target attribute data value is changed. Based on at least one user setting, a user interface for displaying the hierarchical data model and the changed target attribute data value is generated. |
| US09996558B2 |
Method and system for accessing a set of data tables in a source database
Embodiments relate to accessing a set of data tables in a source database. A set of table categories is provided for tables in the source database and a set of metrics is provided. For each table of the set of the data tables: the set of metrics is evaluated, the evaluated set of metrics is analyzed, and the table is categorized into one of the set of table categories using the result of the analysis. Information indicative of the table category of each table of the set of tables is output, and in response, a request to select data tables of the set of data tables is received according to a part of the table categories for data processing. A subset of data tables of the set of data tables is selected using the table categories for performing the data processing on the subset of data tables. |
| US09996555B1 |
Region-specific image download probability modeling
Methods for prioritizing a set of images identified as responsive to an image search query from a user based on features of the images identified as relevant to a geographic region of the user are provided. In one aspect, the method includes submitting a plurality of images to a computer-operated convolutional neural network that is configured to analyze image pixel data for each of the plurality of images to identify features, in each of the plurality of images, influencing a download probability of the corresponding image in a plurality of geographic regions. The method also includes receiving, from the neural network and for each of the plurality of images, a download probability of each image for each of the plurality of geographic regions. Systems and machine-readable media are also provided. |
| US09996551B2 |
System and method for determining and maintaining object location and status
An asset information management system is provided for obtaining and storing information on assets disposed within a structural environment. The system comprises at least one mobile interface device for capturing information about a target object in the structural environment. An information management operating system operates on a central processor in communication with the mobile interface device and a local positioning system. The domain coordinate management system comprises one or more computers configured for establishing spatial addresses for spaces and points within the structural environment. The asset log comprises one or more data storage modules configured for storing information associated with objects disposed within the structural environment. The spatial indexing engine is configured for assigning a spatial address to the target object and for storing information associated with the target object in the asset log. |
| US09996550B2 |
Presenting information based on user profiles
A server may be configured to receive behavior information associated with a user device. The behavior information may indicate a set of geographical locations at which the user device has been present. The server may generate a mode based on the behavior information. The mode may indicate a set of conditions based on which the mode is to be activated, and a set of information to be presented when the mode is activated. The server may output the mode to the user device. The user device may determine, after receiving the mode, that the set of conditions has been satisfied. The determining may be based on a geographical location of the user device. The user device may activate the mode, based on determining that the set of conditions has been satisfied; and may present at least a portion of the set of information, based on activating the mode. |
| US09996547B2 |
Prioritizing content item synchronization based on sharing
Content items queued for synchronization between a client device and a content management system can be automatically prioritized to improve the sharing process. That is, the content items can be prioritized based on whether a share link has been created to the content item. A share link can enable a user to access the shared content item from a content management system. Content items that have been shared using a share link can be given higher priority to be synchronized prior to content items that have not been shared. The queued content items can be synchronized in the synchronization order resulting from the prioritization. Further, multiple shared content items queued for synchronization can be sub-prioritized based on one or more sub-prioritization criteria. |
| US09996546B2 |
Systems and methods for automatically disseminating content based on contextual information
A content-dissemination system distributes, publishes, or makes available a content item to one or more target entities based on contextual information associated with the content item. When a user creates a new content item or the system detects a new content item for a local user, the system determines contextual information for the content item, and uses this contextual and previous historical contextual information to generate a set of structured names for the content item. The system also determines security and privacy policies for disseminating the content item from the determined contextual information and the historical contextual information. The system associates the set of structured names and the security and privacy policies with the content item, and can disseminate the content item to one or more target entities based on these structured names, the security and privacy policies, and the requirements and capabilities of the recipients. |
| US09996544B2 |
Processing method and touch terminal for merge and deduplication operations on contact entries
A processing method and a touch terminal for merge and deduplication operations on contact entries may include opening an address book and displaying all contact entries, recording selected contact entries according to a selection action on contact entries, receiving a drag action to merge contact entries, and merging the selected contact entries according to the drag action. The processing method and touch terminal may further include removing the duplicated information in the selected contact entries during merging, and detecting conflict information in the selected contact entries. Thereby, redundant records in an address book may be deleted by dragging contact entries to be merged, removing the duplicated information while merging, and detecting conflict information, which may enhance a smart effect of the touch terminal and may improve user experience. |
| US09996542B2 |
Cache management in a computerized system
A clustered computerized system includes a set of hosts, network infrastructure for interconnecting the hosts of the set, and a clustered file system shared between the hosts of the set. A solid state memory is assigned to each host of the set. The computerized system is configured to cache data in the solid state memories, and is configured to include metadata of the cached data in the clustered file system. |
| US09996541B2 |
Hash-based mount point lookup in virtual file systems
Systems and methods for performing hash-based mount point lookup in virtual file systems. An example method may include: receiving a first character string representing a file name; identifying, within an array of mount point strings, a second character string having a second string length not exceeding a first string length of the first character string; responsive to ascertaining that the first character string comprises the second character string, identifying a file system object associated with a mount point path represented by the second character string; and utilizing the file system object to access a file referenced by the file name. |
| US09996535B1 |
Efficient hierarchical user interface
Systems and methods are provided for generating organization data for an efficient presentation and/or organization of a collection of items. In some embodiments, the organization data may be based on metadata associated with items, such as keywords. The metadata may be generated from natural language processing of the items. Organization data and/or a hierarchical data organization may be a tree data structure that can be efficiently navigated to reach and/or locate an item. In some embodiments, organization data may be automatically updated in response to a document removal, addition, and/or a user selection. For example, as items are removed and/or added to the collection, keywords, counts, directories, nodes, and/or levels of the organization data may update and/or change to reflect the updated collection of items. |
| US09996534B2 |
Efficiently restoring execution of a backed up virtual machine based on coordination with virtual-machine-file-relocation operations
The disclosed systems and methods enable a virtual machine, including any applications executing thereon, to quickly start executing and servicing users based on pre-staged data blocks supplied from a backup copy in secondary storage. Substantially concurrently with the ongoing execution of the virtual machine, a virtual-machine-file-relocation operation may move data blocks originating in the backup copy to a primary storage destination that becomes the virtual machine's primary data store after the relocation operation completes. An enhanced data agent, operating in conjunction with an enhanced media agent in a storage management system, coordinates restoring of the virtual machine and the launch of the relocation operation. The enhanced media agent may pre-stage certain backed up data blocks which may be needed to launch the virtual machine, based on predictive analysis pertaining to the virtual machine's operational profile. The enhanced media agent may also pre-stage backed up data blocks for the relocation operation, based on the operation's relocation scheme. Servicing read requests to the virtual machine may take priority over ongoing pre-staging of backed up data. Read requests may be tracked so that the media agent may properly maintain the contents of an associated read cache. Some embodiments of the illustrative storage management system may lack, or may simply not require, the relocation operation, and may operate in a “live mount” configuration. |
| US09996532B2 |
Systems and methods for building state specific multi-turn contextual language understanding systems
Systems and methods for building a dialog-state specific multi-turn contextual language understanding system are provided. More specifically, the systems and methods infer or are configured to infer a state-specific schema and/or state-specific rules from a formed single-shot language understanding model and/or a single-shot rule set. As such, the systems and methods only require the information necessary to form a single-shot language understanding model and/or a single-shot rule set from a builder to form or build the dialog-state specific multi-turn contextual language understanding system. Accordingly, the systems and methods for building a dialog-state specific multi-turn contextual language understanding system reduce the expertise, time, and resources necessary to build a dialog-state specific multi-turn contextual language understanding system for an application when compared to systems and methods that require further input from the builder than necessary to build a single-shot language understanding system. |
| US09996530B1 |
Determining NCCs and/or using the NCCs to adapt performance of computer-based action(s)
Systems, methods, and computer readable media related to determining whether a compound is a non-compositional noun compound (“NCC”). Some implementations are additionally or alternatively directed to using determined NCCs to adapt performance of one or more computer-based actions such as indexing or otherwise annotating electronic resources (e.g., web pages or other Internet resources), processing search queries, identifying and/or ranking electronic resources in response to search queries, identifying and/or ranking search query suggestions for search queries, etc. |
| US09996529B2 |
Method and system for generating dynamic themes for social data
Disclosed is a system, method, and computer program product for performing dynamic theme analysis with regards to social data. A user interface is provided that allows the user to view and interact with to view and control the process/mechanism for performing theme analysis. |
| US09996528B2 |
Advanced clause groupings detection
An electronic documents verification system (and method) detects related contracts, and analyzes contents in the related contracts including a primary contract and associated amendments from raw input data. One embodiment of a disclosed configuration includes a system (and method) for identifying clauses used in the related contracts. The system (and method) extracts features including key references or descriptions within each contract. Additionally, the system (and method) groups the related contracts, and establishes linkages of the related contracts based on the extracted features. Furthermore, the system (and method) analyzes contents in the related contracts based on advanced policy group including a plurality of policy groups. |
| US09996527B1 |
Supporting interactive text mining process with natural language and dialog
A mechanism is provided in a data processing system comprising at least one processor and at least one memory, the at least one memory comprising instructions executed by the at least one processor to cause the at least one processor to implement a document analysis device for performing a statistical analysis of documents with respect to a facet. An acceptance module accepts a natural language sentence. An extraction module extracts a first facet from the natural language sentence. A statistical analysis module performs a first statistical analysis of a set of documents with respect to the first facet and determines a value of the first facet based on a result of the first statistical analysis responsive to information being extracted from the natural language sentence, the information requesting for a second statistical analysis. The statistical analysis module performs the second statistical analysis of the set of documents using the value of the first facet. A user interface presents a second facet determined based on a result of the second statistical analysis. |
| US09996525B2 |
System and method for supplementing a question answering system with mixed-language source documents
Embodiments can provide a computer implemented method, in a data processing system comprising a processor and a memory comprising instructions which are executed by the processor to cause the processor to implement a mixed-language question answering supplement system, the method comprising receiving a question in a target language; applying natural language processing to parse the question into at least one focus; for each focus, determining if one or more target language verbs share direct syntactic dependency with the focus; for each of the one or more verbs sharing direct syntactic dependency, determining if one or more target language entities share direct syntactic dependency with the verb; determining one or more Abstract Universal Verbal Types associated with each verb; for each of the one or more Abstract Universal Verbal Types, determining whether a dependency between a source language entity and a source language verb is of the same type as the dependency between the target language verb and the target language entity; if the dependency is similar, returning the source language entity as a member of a set; and if the set is full, returning an answer in the target language to the question in the target language. |
| US09996521B2 |
Validation of formulas with external sources
A method validates a formula within a spreadsheet. A formula type, of an identified formula from a spreadsheet, is identified. A database of known accurate formulas, whose type matches a formula type of the identified formula within the spreadsheet, is identified and located. A determination is made as to whether the identified formula from the spreadsheet matches a known accurate formula from the database. In response to the identified formula from the spreadsheet failing to match the known accurate formula from the database, a predefined action is initiated. |
| US09996517B2 |
Audio input of field entries
One embodiment provides a method, including: accessing, using a processor, a form comprising at least one fillable field; receiving, from an audio input device, audio input from a user; identifying, using a processor, a fillable field associated with the audio input; and providing input, based on the audio input, to the fillable field associated with the audio input. Other aspects are described and claimed. |
| US09996512B2 |
Customized processing of DOM objects
The invention discloses a device for a browser to process a page element comprising: at least one DOM object processor disposed at the browser side, each DOM object processor being configured to store a customized processing of a specific DOM object; a page parser configured to load an obtained page at the browser side, parse page elements of the obtained page, and convert each page element into a DOM object; a DOM processor coupled to the page parser and the at least one DOM object processor, and configured to invoke the at least one DOM object processor to perform a customized processing on at least one of converted DOM objects. By employing the invention, a personalized customization can be performed to a page according to the user needs. The invention further discloses a corresponding method. |
| US09996509B1 |
System for creating managing and displaying multi-frame based ads on mobile devices
A method includes, but is not limited to any combination of: determining a plurality of third-party content elements based in part on information associated with a request for third-party content. The request for third-party content may be received from a web browser displaying a first webpage to a user. A first element from the plurality of determined third-party content elements is transmitted to the web browser. Upon receiving from the web browser a second request for third-party content including user interaction data with the first element, data associated with the determined plurality of third-party content elements is updated based at least in part on the user interaction data. A second third-party element from the plurality of updated third-party content elements is transmitted to the web browser. |
| US09996508B2 |
Input assistance device, input assistance method and storage medium
To provide an input assistance device, an input assistance method and a storage medium which can present a character string to be suggested to a user in consideration of a probability of being inputted first in a character string. An input assistance device is for assisting a user to input a character string, the device includes: a character string determining unit that determines a character string to be suggested relating to the inputted kana character string, in the case that a user inputs a kana character string by use of index structure, the index structure recording therein a word together with its kana-reading and the index structure indicating whether or not it is probable that the word is inputted first at a time of inputting a character string; and a suggested candidate presenting unit that presents the character string to be suggested, which is determined, as a suggested candidate. |
| US09996507B2 |
Geo-cultural information based dynamic character variant rendering
For dynamically changing a rendering of content, the content including a textual character is received at a mobile device. An encoding of the textual character uses a first code point according to a character encoding standard. The mobile device's presence at a geographical location is detected. The mobile device is associated with a user. A variant selection rule is selected at the device. The variant selection rule specifies a location based condition to select a variant corresponding to the textual character. A variant is selected at the device according to the variant selection rule, a variant mapping corresponding to the first code point. The variant mapping includes the variant. The encoding of the textual character is replaced at the device with an encoding of the variant in the rendering of the content. |
| US09996501B1 |
Validating document content prior to format conversion based on a calculated threshold as a function of document size
A content validation module receives an electronic media item in a first format. The content validation module may determine whether the electronic media item will contain errors when the electronic media item is converted to a second format. The content validation module may also obtain an error metric for the electronic media item and may refrain from converting the electronic media item to the second format if the error metric exceeds an error threshold. |
| US09996498B2 |
Network memory
Communication apparatus includes a host interface for connection, via a host bus, to a host processor and a host memory, which is mapped to an address space of the host bus, and a network interface, configured to transmit and receive packets over a network. A local memory is configured to hold data in a memory space that is not mapped to the address space of the host bus. Packet processing circuitry, which is connected between the host interface and the network interface and is connected to the local memory, is configured to receive from the network interface a packet carrying a remote direct memory access (RDMA) request that is directed to an address in the local memory, and to service the RDMA request by accessing the data in the local memory. |
| US09996492B2 |
Coupling device and method for dynamically allocating USB endpoints of a USB interface, and exchange trading system terminal with coupling device
The invention relates to a method and a coupling device for dynamically allocating USB endpoints of a USB interface, which can be accessed using at least two applications, comprising: a USB interface that has at least two ports, each of which comprises at least one USB endpoint; and a control device for dynamically allocating the USB endpoints. The control device is designed so as to preconfigure each USB endpoint which is required for the at least two applications by means of an initialization process, and thus the control device can switch the allocation of the endpoints according to the access using at least one of the applications without the USB endpoints affected by the switch having to be deactivated. |
| US09996485B2 |
Asymmetric-channel memory system
A memory-control integrated circuit includes internal data conductors, steering circuitry and distinct first and second data interfaces, the first data interface having twice as many input/output (I/O) transceivers as the second data interface. In a first memory system configuration in which only the first data interface is coupled to a memory module, the steering circuitry couples all the internal data conductors exclusively to the I/O transceivers of the first data interface. In a second memory system configuration in which the first and second data interfaces are coupled to respective memory modules, the steering circuitry couples a first half of the internal data conductors exclusively to the I/O transceivers of the second data interface while a second half of the internal data conductors remains exclusively coupled to half the I/O transceivers of the first data interface. |
| US09996484B1 |
Hardware acceleration for software emulation of PCI express compliant devices
A system that provides virtualized computing resources may include an enhanced PCIe endpoint device on which an emulation processor emulates PCIe compliant hardware in software. The endpoint device may include host interface circuitry that implements pointer registers and control and status registers for each of multiple transaction ring buffers instantiated in memory on the device. In response to receiving a transaction layer packet that includes a transaction, packet steering circuitry may push the transaction into one of the buffers, dependent on the transaction type, a routing identifier for an emulated device to which it is directed, its traffic class or other criteria. The transaction may be processed in software, emulating the hardware device. The host interface circuitry may generate response completion packets for configuration requests and non-posted transactions, and may return them according to PCIe ordering rules, regardless of the order in which they were processed on the endpoint device. |
| US09996483B2 |
N-base numbers to physical wire states symbols translation method
System, methods and apparatus are described that facilitate a device to encode/decode data in a data communications interface coupled to a plurality of wires. The device determines a value of a sequence of data bits allocated to a frame, converts the value into a sequence of symbols associated with the frame, and transmits the sequence of symbols to a receiver. The device performs the converting by calculating base-N coefficients of a base-N number polynomial for the frame based on the value, where N is greater than 2, calculating base-2 coefficients of a base-2 number polynomial for each symbol according to a respective base-N coefficient corresponding to each symbol, determining changes of states of the plurality of wires for each symbol according to the base-2 coefficients respectively calculated for each symbol, and generating the sequence of symbols based on the changes of states of the plurality of wires for each symbol. |
| US09996481B2 |
Dynamic memory access management
A system, a method and a computer program product for managing memory access of an avionics control system having at least one control computer having at least one memory control device. The method includes assigning a memory access of at least one unique memory region of at least one memory unit to each of at least one application task or task set. A memory access of at least one application data update task is assigned to at least one subregion of one or more of the at least one unique memory region. At least one data parameter is written to the at least one subregion and the assigned memory access of the at least one application data update task de-activated. |
| US09996473B2 |
Selective underlying exposure storage mapping
An apparatus for mapping user data into a selective underlying exposure address (SUE) space includes a memory that stores machine instructions and a processor that executes the instructions to combine first user data from a plurality of logically-addressed blocks to create a SUE page. The SUE page corresponds to a respective physical page of a respective physical block on each of a plurality of dies for which corresponding physical blocks of memory cells are jointly managed as a unit in a storage device. The processor further executes the instructions to store mapping information associating the first user data with the SUE page in a logical address space in the storage device. |
| US09996471B2 |
Cache with compressed data and tag
Cache line data and metadata are compressed and stored in first and, optionally, second memory regions, the metadata including an address tag When the compressed data fit entirely within a primary block in the first memory region, both data and metadata are retrieved in a single memory access. Otherwise, overflow data is stored in an overflow block in the second memory region. The first and second memory regions may be located in the same row of a DRAM, for example, or in different regions of a DRAM and may be configured to enable standard DRAM components to be used. Compression and decompression logic circuits may be included in a memory controller. |
| US09996467B2 |
Dynamically adjusting the number of flows allowed in a flow table cache
Some embodiments provide a physical forwarding element that dynamically adjusts the number of flows allowed in a flow table cache. In adjusting, the physical forwarding element initially sets the maximum number of flows allowed in the cache. From the flow table cache, the physical forwarding then iterates through the set maximum number of flows and records the length of time it took to iterate through the flows. Based on the duration, the physical forwarding element then automatically adjusts the size of the flow table cache by increasing or decreasing the number of flows allowed in the cache. Alternatively, the physical forwarding element may choose to keep the cache size the same based on the duration. |
| US09996466B2 |
Apparatus, system and method for caching compressed data
Techniques and mechanisms to efficiently cache data based on compression of such data. The technologies of the present disclosure include cache systems, methods, and computer readable media to support operations performed with data that is compressed prior to being written as a cache line in a cache memory. In some embodiments, a cache controller determines the size of compressed data to be stored as a cache line. The cache controller identifies a logical block address (LBA) range to cache the compressed data, where such identifying is based on the size of the compressed data and on reference information describing multiple LBA ranges of the cache memory. One or more such LBA ranges are of different respective sizes. In other embodiments, LBA ranges of the cache memory concurrently store respective compressed cache lines, wherein the LBA ranges and are of different respective sizes. |
| US09996465B2 |
Cached volumes at storage gateways
Methods and apparatus for supporting cached volumes at storage gateways are disclosed. A storage gateway appliance is configured to cache at least a portion of a storage object of a remote storage service at local storage devices. In response to a client's write request, directed to at least a portion of a data chunk of the storage object, the appliance stores a data modification indicated in the write request at a storage device, and asynchronously uploads the modification to the storage service. In response to a client's read request, directed to a different portion of the data chunk, the appliance downloads the requested data from the storage service to the storage device, and provides the requested data to the client. |
| US09996464B2 |
Metadata cache management
Managing a cache includes determining from metadata of a received service request whether a cache data response may satisfy the request as a function of recognizing a cacheable method name specification within request metadata by a service provider associated with the request, and determining whether the request is an inquiry in order to decide if the request may be satisfied by the cached data. Aspects also include searching the cache for the data response if determined the data is cacheable and the request is an inquiry, and sending the request on to a service provider if the data response is not a cacheable response, or the request is an update request. |
| US09996459B2 |
Reclaiming of sequential storage medium
Software for reclaiming a sequential storage medium that includes: copying all active data blocks in a first part of sequentially written data on a first sequential storage medium, to a second sequential storage medium, the first part extending from a first intermediate position to an end of the sequentially written data; and defining all data blocks in a second part of the sequentially written data on the first sequential storage medium, to be a new sequentially written data, the second part extending from a beginning to a second intermediate position of the sequentially written data, and excluding the active data blocks copied to the second sequential storage medium. |
| US09996455B2 |
Virtual storage address threshold for freemained frames
Address-based thresholds for freemained frames are used to determine retention actions. Based, at least in part, on a comparison of a number of freemained frames for an address space against a threshold of freemained frames for the address space, freemained frames can be retained or rejected and/or the threshold can be adjusted. |
| US09996452B2 |
Test case generation for uncovered code paths
Embodiments of the present invention provide methods, computer program products, and systems to increase code coverage. Embodiments of the present invention can receive a copy of source code and data associated with a sample execution of a set of instructions specified by the copy of the source code. Embodiments of the present invention can insert, into the set of instructions specified by the copy of the source code, an instruction that corresponds to a code statement that precedes an untraversed code path within the received copy of the source code. Embodiments of the present invention can execute the set of instructions that include the inserted instruction and provide an option to redirect execution of the set of instructions at the inserted instruction. Embodiments of the present invention can generate a test case that increases code coverage based on the redirected execution of the set of instructions. |
| US09996445B2 |
Computer flight recorder with active error detection
A method, apparatus and program product utilize a flight recorder having active error detection functionality to proactively detect errors in a computer or a sub-system or component thereof. The active error detection may be based on one or more trends detected in the trace data logged by the flight recorder and reflective of particular types of errors that may be present in a computer during operation, such that an error may be logged, and in some instances, an exception may be triggered. |
| US09996444B2 |
Automated methods and systems for calculating hard thresholds
This disclosure is directed to automated methods and systems for calculating hard thresholds used to monitor time-series data generated by data-generating entity. The methods are based on determining a cumulative distribution that characterizes the probability that data values of time-series data generated by the data-generating entity violate a hard threshold. The hard threshold is calculated as an inverse of the cumulative distribution based on a user defined risk confidence level. The hard threshold may then be used to generate alerts when time-series data generated later by the data-generating entity violate the hard threshold. |
| US09996442B2 |
Cloud computing benchmarking
Cloud computing benchmarking is performed wherein the resource usage of a measuring benchmarking application is compensated for as to not impact measurement. The measurements are of a cloud instance's benchmarking indicia which may include performance, functions and characteristics of the cloud instance. The benchmarking indicia use scalable measures as to allow the use of arithmetic operations such as those used in statistical functions. The benchmarking application is dispatched along with a configuration file and is controlled from a central controller to specified cloud instances. The dispatched benchmarking application takes measurements of the cloud instance based on the configuration file. The benchmarking application then stores the measurements in a results file for return back to the central controller. At the central controller, results files from one or more benchmarking applications are stored in a data store for comparative and statistical analysis. |
| US09996438B2 |
Chunk redundancy architecture for memory
An integrated circuit (IC) includes addressable blocks of memory, and at least one redundant block of memory. A block of memory includes two or more chunks of memory. The IC also includes redundancy control cells. Control circuitry is included to access a first chunk of a redundant block of memory in place of a first remapped chunk one of the addressable blocks of memory, and a second chunk of a redundant block of memory in place of a second remapped chunk one of the addressable blocks of memory, based on the redundancy control cells. |
| US09996433B2 |
Storage control of storage media subject to write amplification effects
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for performing storage control. Member storage media and a hot spare storage medium are identified in a storage system. The member storage media are members of a storage medium array, and the hot spare storage medium is for joining in the storage medium array when a member storage medium fails. Data on a member storage medium having a write amplification effect is migrated to the hot spare storage medium. In the member storage medium having a write amplification effect, an erase operation is performed on a storage medium where the migrated data is located. Embodiments of the present invention can alleviate adverse impact caused by a write amplification effect. |
| US09996432B2 |
Automated local database connection affinity and failover
A first compute node of a plurality of compute nodes of a database cluster may receive a request for a database transaction from a client application. The client application may be located within the first compute node. A first connection may be established, without regard to whether another compute node has a lighter workload than the first compute node, between the client application and a first database of the database cluster. The first connection may be a local connection, wherein the first database is located within the first compute node. The first compute node may detect that a failure associated with the first database has occurred. The first compute node may execute a failover operation to continue servicing the request for the data. The executing of a failover operation may include establishing a second connection between the client application and a second database of the database cluster. |
| US09996430B2 |
Systems and methods of unified reconstruction in storage systems
Systems and methods for reconstructing unified data in an electronic storage network are provided which may include the identification and use of metadata stored centrally within the system. The metadata may be generated by a group of storage operation cells during storage operations within the network. The unified metadata is used to reconstruct data throughout the storage operation cells that may be missing, deleted or corrupt. |
| US09996429B1 |
Mountable container backups for files
A file stored in a volume on a client is backed up in a mountable format by creating on the client a template virtual volume that corresponds to the volume in which the file is stored. A set of file extents occupied by the file is identified. A file extent in a backup stream is identified. If the file extent is not within the set of file extents, the template virtual volume is accessed to backup a data block associated with the virtual volume. If the file extent is within the set of file extents, the file is accessed to backup a data block of the file. |
| US09996420B2 |
Error-correction encoding and decoding
A data encoding method includes storing K input data symbols; assigning the symbols to respective symbol locations in a notional square array, having n rows and n columns of locations, to define a plurality of k-symbol words in respective rows; encoding the words by encoding rows and columns of the array dependent on a product code having identical row and column codes, each being a reversible error-correction code of dimension k and length n=2n′, thereby to define a codeword, having n2 code symbols corresponding to respective locations of the array, of a quarter product code defined by CQ={X−XT−(X−XT)F: X∈C} where X is an n by n-symbol matrix defining a codeword of the product code, XT is the transpose matrix of X, and (X−XT)F is a reflection of matrix (X−XT) in the anti-diagonal thereof. |
| US09996419B1 |
Storage system with distributed ECC capability
Embodiments of the present invention relate to an apparatus, method, and/or sequence for a distributed ECC that may be used in a storage system. In another embodiment of the invention, an apparatus for handling distributed error correction code (ECC) operations, includes: a plurality of ECC engines configured to perform ECC operations in parallel on multiple data parts; the plurality of ECC engines distributed in parallel to receive some of the multiple data parts that are read from storage media devices and to receive some of the other multiple data parts that are to be written to the storage media devices; and the plurality of ECC engines configured to use respective ECC bytes corresponding to respective ones of the multiple data parts. |
| US09996417B2 |
Data recovery in memory having multiple failure modes
A controller includes an interface and a processor. The interface is configured to communicate with a memory including multiple memory cells organized in at least two sections each including multiple sets of word lines (WLs), wherein in a first failure mode multiple WLs fail in a single section, and in a second failure mode a WL fails in multiple sections. The processor is configured to assign multiple cell-groups of the memory cells to a parity-group, such that (i) no two cell-groups in the parity-group belong to a same WL, and (ii) no two cell-groups in the parity-group belong to adjacent WLs in a same section, and, upon detecting a failure to access a cell-group in the parity-group, due to either the first or second failure modes but not both failure modes occurring simultaneously, to recover the data stored in the cell-group using one or more remaining cell-groups in the parity-group. |
| US09996415B2 |
Data correcting method, memory control circuit unit, and memory storage device
A data correcting method for a rewritable non-volatile memory module is provided. The method includes: if a first user data read from a first physical programming unit cannot be corrected by a corresponding first parity code, reading at least one group parity code of a first encoded group that the first physical programming unit belongs to into a buffer, sending the group parity code to a correcting circuit, and reading a user data from physical programming units belonging to the first encoded group into the buffer and sending the user data and the group parity code to the correcting circuit in batches to obtain a corrected first user data corresponding to the first user data. |
| US09996408B2 |
Evaluation of performance of software applications
A method and system for evaluating performance of software applications. Steps in a first software application within a first web site are mapped to respective similar-function steps in a second software application within a second web site. Measures of performance of: each mapped step in the first software application, the respective similar-function steps in the second software application, and other steps in the second application are determined. A measure of performance of the first software application is determined, based on the measures of performance of each mapped step in the first software application. A measure of performance of the second software application is determined, based on the measures of performance of the respective similar-function steps and the other steps in the second software application. Improved performance is obtained for the and/or first software application by utilizing the measure of performance of the first and/or second software application, respectively. |
| US09996407B2 |
Methods for data acquisition systems in real time applications
A system may include a processing unit executing program instructions (SW), a data acquisition (DAQ) hardware device for acquiring sample data and/or generating control signals, and host memory configured to store data samples and various data associated with the DAQ and processor operations. The DAQ device may push HW status information to host memory upon being triggered by predetermined events taking place in the DAQ device, e.g. timing events or interrupts, to avoid or reduce SW reads to the DAQ device. The DAQ device may update dedicated buffers in host memory with status data on any of these events. The status information pushed to memory may be read in a manner that allows detection of race conditions. Interrupts generated by the DAQ device may be similarly handled. Upon generating an interrupt, the DAQ device may gather information required to handle the interrupt, and push the information into system memory, along with information identifying the interrupt. SW may read system memory for this information, and handle the interrupts as required without having to query the DAQ device. |
| US09996405B2 |
Embedded prognostics on PLC platforms for equipment condition monitoring, diagnosis and time-to-failure/service prediction
A prognostics analysis software module is embedded in a programmable logic controller (PLC) software platform. During cycling of the PLC real-time operating program, data is read from sensors and written to a buffer only when the prognostics analysis software module is idle. The prognostics analysis software module is then activated by a system function block of the PLC software platform. Before determining any prognostic information, prediction models within the prognostics analysis software module are automatically trained using features extracted from the sensor data. |
| US09996401B2 |
Task processing method and virtual machine
A task processing method and virtual machine are disclosed. The method includes selecting an idle resource for a task; creating a global variable snapshot for a global variable; executing the task, in private memory space in the selected idle resource; after the execution of the task is complete, acquiring a new global variable snapshot corresponding to the global variable, and acquiring an updated global variable according to a local global variable snapshot and the new global variable snapshot; and determining whether a synchronization variable of a to-be-executed task in a task synchronization waiting queue includes the current updated global variable, and if the synchronization variable of the to-be-executed task in the task synchronization waiting queue includes the current updated global variable, putting the task into a task execution waiting queue. |
| US09996397B1 |
Flexible device function aggregation
Apparatus, systems and methods aggregating electronic devices for sharing functionality to fulfill requested tasks, while also monitoring and controlling battery energy levels in these electronic devices to ensure sufficient battery power is available on the devices, individually or collectively, to fulfill a requested task. The electronic devices are positioned in proximity to a computing device for determining functionalities that may be shared amongst the various electronic devices to fulfill the requested task. These electronic devices are also provided in proximity to a charge distribution unit (CDU) for determining if each electronic device has enough battery power to complete all, or a portion, of the requested task. If any device needs charging, the CDU allocates and distributes battery power from one or more other device batteries and/or power outlet. The charging power is then transferred to the electronic device in need of charging to fulfill the requested task. |
| US09996396B2 |
Cross architecture virtual machine migration
Provided are a computer program product, system, and method for transferring a virtual machine from a first server to a second server. A first enhanced system translator executing on the first server includes a first virtual machine interface to interface with a first instance of the virtual machine on the first server and a first convert state component. A second enhanced system translator executing on the second server includes a second virtual machine interface to interface with a second instance of the virtual machine and a second convert state component. The first convert state component converts a state of the first instance of the virtual machine to a first instruction set architecture and the second convert state component converts the first instructions set architecture to a second instruction set architecture for use by the second instance of the virtual machine to run on the second server. |
| US09996385B2 |
Dynamic aggressiveness for optimizing placement of virtual machines in a computing environment
Dynamically changing the aggressiveness of optimization of virtual machines on physical hosts allows more efficient and varied optimization. An aggressiveness policy mechanism periodically applies system conditions to the aggressiveness policies to create aggressiveness settings that are provided to an optimizer. The optimizer then uses the aggressiveness settings to dynamically adjust the aggressiveness of placement of virtual machines according to the aggressiveness settings and consistent with other optimization policies. The aggressiveness policy mechanism may allow a system administrator to create and/or select aggressiveness policies. |
| US09996379B2 |
Program execution without the use of bytecode modification or injection
A method for registering a plurality of callbacks. The method may include receiving at least one callback function in a virtual machine, which includes a plurality of callback registration information. The method may include registering each at least one received callback function in a virtual machine tool interface within the virtual machine to a list of callback functions for an event based on the plurality of callback registration information. The method may include monitoring the virtual machine for an occurrence of the event. The method may include determining the event has occurred. The method may also include generating a local frame for each at least one registered callback function within the list of callback functions for the determined event. The method may include executing each at least one registered callback function based on each generated local frame associated with each at least one registered callback function. |
| US09996378B2 |
Managing a check-point based high-availability backup virtual machine
A technique for failure monitoring and recovery of a first application executing on a first virtual machine includes storing machine state information during execution of the first virtual machine at predetermined checkpoints. An error message that includes an application error state at a failure point of the first application is received, by a hypervisor, from the first application. The first virtual machine is stopped in response to the error message. The hypervisor creates a second virtual machine and a second application from the stored machine state information that are copies of the first virtual machine and the first application. The second virtual machine and the second application are configured to execute from a checkpoint preceding the failure point. In response to receipt of a failure interrupt by the second application, one or more recovery processes are initiated in an attempt to avert the failure point. |
| US09996376B2 |
Virtual machine monitoring method and system thereof
A virtual machine monitoring method and a system thereof are provided. The virtual machine monitoring method includes: detecting at least one hardware resource of an electronic device and storing corresponding hardware configuration data, detecting display information of the electronic device and storing corresponding display configuration data, connecting a server and receiving image data therefrom, establishing a virtual machine based on the image data, configuring the at least one hardware resource on the virtual machine based on the hardware configuration data, setting a display image on the virtual machine based on the display configuration data, and clearing the image data to end the virtual machine, so as to provide a user-friendly interface and achieve corporate data security. |
| US09996374B2 |
Deployment and installation of updates in a virtual environment
An update is deployed to a guest virtual machine of a hypervisor during runtime of the guest virtual machine. An executing thread of the guest virtual machine is identified and execution of the thread is redirected to a function to open a handle to a file, of the guest virtual machine, to which data of the update is to be written. The data is provided to a component of the guest virtual machine, and then execution of the thread is redirected to a function to write the data provided to the component to the file. |
| US09996368B2 |
Method to enable semi-automatic regeneration of manuals by saving manual creation operations as scripts
A method, system and computer program product for creating, editing, and generating operating manuals utilizing scripts. Operations performed by an author during manual creation are saved as scripts. The operations are replayed when regenerating or modifying the manual. When replaying the script of the operating manual, the script may be stopped at convenient points to add additional operations and/or modifications. These additional operations and/or modifications are also recorded as scripts to enable generation of the edited/modified manual. |
| US09996363B2 |
Methods of and apparatus for displaying windows on a display
In a compositing window system, as a respective version of the window for an application is written into a window buffer, a corresponding set of per tile signatures indicative of the content of each respective tile in the window buffer is generated and stored. When an updated version of the window is stored into a window buffer, the set of signature values for the updated version is compared to the set of signature values for the previous version in the window buffer to determine which tiles' content has changed. The set of tiles found to have changed is used to generate a set of regions for a window compositor to write to a window in a display frame buffer to update the window in the display frame buffer to display the new version of the window. |
| US09996362B2 |
Diagnostics only boot mode
Systems and methods for utilizing a diagnostics only boot mode may include initializing, by a computing device comprising a processor, a boot sequence. The computing device may detect installation of a hardware module. In response to detection of the hardware module, the computing device may initialize an alternate boot sequence. |
| US09996361B2 |
Byte and nibble sort instructions that produce sorted destination register and destination index mapping
A processor comprises a first register to store a plurality of data items at a plurality of positions within the first register, a second register, and an execution unit, operatively coupled to the first register and the second register, the execution unit comprising a logic circuit implementing a sort instruction for sorting the plurality of data items stored in the first register in an order of data item values, and storing, in the second register, a plurality of indices, wherein each index identifies a position associated with a data item stored in the first register prior to the sorting. |
| US09996359B2 |
Fast multi-width instruction issue in parallel slice processor
Fast issuance and execution of a multi-width instruction across multiple slices in a parallel slice processor core is supported in part through the use of an early notification signal passed between issue logic associated with multiple slices handling that multi-width instruction coupled with an issuance of a different instruction by the originating issue logic for the early notification signal. |
| US09996358B2 |
Unified prefetching into instruction cache and branch target buffer
A system and method of coupling a Branch Target Buffer (BTB) content of a BTB with an instruction cache content of an instruction cache. The method includes: tagging a plurality of target buffer entries that belong to branches within a same instruction block with a corresponding instruction block address and a branch bitmap to indicate individual branches in the block; coupling an overflow buffer with the BTB to accommodate further target buffer entries of instruction blocks, distinct from the plurality of target buffer entries, which have more branches than the bundle is configured to accommodate in the corresponding instruction's bundle in the BTB; and predicting the instructions or the instruction blocks that are likely to be fetched by the core in the future and fetch those instructions from the lower levels of the memory hierarchy proactively by means of a prefetcher. |
| US09996350B2 |
Hardware apparatuses and methods to prefetch a multidimensional block of elements from a multidimensional array
Methods and apparatuses relating to a prefetch instruction to prefetch a multidimensional block of elements from a multidimensional array into a cache. In one embodiment, a hardware processor includes a decoder to decode a prefetch instruction to prefetch a multidimensional block of elements from a multidimensional array into a cache, wherein at least one operand of the prefetch instruction is to indicate a system memory address of an element of the multidimensional block of elements, a stride of the multidimensional block of elements, and boundaries of the multidimensional block of elements, and an execution unit to execute the prefetch instruction to generate system memory addresses of the other elements of the multidimensional block of elements, and load the multidimensional block of elements into the cache from the system memory addresses. |
| US09996347B2 |
Hardware apparatuses and methods relating to elemental register accesses
Methods and apparatuses relating to a vector instruction with a register operand with an elemental offset are described. In one embodiment, a hardware processor includes a decode unit to decode a vector instruction with a register operand with an elemental offset to access a first number of elements in a register specified by the register operand, wherein the first number is a total number of elements in the register minus the elemental offset, access a second number of elements in a next logical register, wherein the second number is the elemental offset, and combine the first number of elements and the second number of elements as a data vector, and an execution unit to execute the vector instruction on the data vector. |
| US09996343B2 |
System and method for determining component version compatibility across a device ecosystem
A system and method that include collecting device version profiles from a plurality of device sources; classifying the device version profiles into a device profile repository; receiving a component version query request; querying the device profile repository according to the version query request; and responding to the query request with results of the query. |
| US09996336B2 |
Apparatus and method for validating application deployment topology in cloud computing environment
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for validating application deployment topology in a cloud environment. There is provided an apparatus for validating application deployment topology in a cloud environment comprising: a topology skeleton generator configured to generate, based on multiple VMs and script packages running on the VMs created by a user and required to deploy an application as well as running order of script packages and data dependency between script packages set by the user, a topology skeleton that comprises at least scripts of script packages of respective VMs and running order of the script packages; and a simulator configured to simulate a runtime environment in the cloud environment at the apparatus, thereby validating the running order and data dependency with respect to the topology skeleton, wherein the simulator is installed in the apparatus by using a simulator installation package retrieved from the cloud environment. |
| US09996332B2 |
Accurately estimating install time
Timing parameters that influence an install time interval for installing a product on computing machines in a test environment in accordance with an installation configuration option are identified. A test value of the timing parameter and a test value of the install time are determined for each of the computing machines. The test values of the timing parameter and the install time determined for the sample computing machines are analyzed to determine an install time calculation expression for the installation configuration option. For installation in accordance with the installation configuration option in a normal operating environment, a current value of each of the timing parameters of the predetermined install time calculation expression for the installation configuration option. The install time interval in the normal operating environment is estimated based on the current value of the timing parameters and the install time calculation expression. |
| US09996322B2 |
Dynamically generated user interface
A system and method for facilitating automatically adjusting a user interface display screen or portion thereof. An example method includes determining context information associated with data, wherein the data is maintained in accordance with a data model; generating a signal when the context information changes; and employing the signal to automatically configure one or more characteristics of a user interface architecture, resulting in an adjusted user interface architecture. The context information may include information specifying one or more attributes relating to the data model. Generating may further include analyzing the one or more attributes to determine a modification to be made to the user interface architecture and then rendering a user interface display screen based on a modified user interface architecture. |
| US09996314B2 |
Audio control apparatus and headset system for integrating personal electronic devices
An audio control apparatus particularly suited for an active outdoor type of person integrates multiple electronic devices. Audio source devices can include a mobile phone, a music player, and a walkie talkie. Audio sink devices can include a video recorder. The audio signals from the audio source devices may be mixed and sent to the video recorder to capture live audio signals. The user controls the audio control apparatus using either integrated or external UI buttons, which are context specific, configurable and allow control of the external devices from a single UI. External UI buttons may be mounted to a helmet or another easy to access location. A USB port on the external UI allows charging the audio control apparatus without needing to access or otherwise disturb the apparatus while it is nicely positioned within the helmet. |
| US09996312B2 |
Display driver, display system and microcomputer
Low power consumption is realized focusing on the refresh interval of a low leakage display panel. Display systems and microcomputers are described herein. One embodiment of a display system includes a display driver. The driver receives an enable signal from the outside, stops the display operation of an internal circuit in an inactive state of the enable signal, and resumes the display operation of the internal circuit in an active state. Instead of the enable signal, a command supplied from the outside may be used. When resuming the display operation, the display driver performs control to make the start timing of the display operation earlier for a circuit that requires a long time for activation. A microcomputer that outputs an enable signal or a command controls the output or the output stop of display data according to the state of the enable signal or the command. |
| US09996310B1 |
Content prioritization for a display array
Systems and methods for displaying prioritized content using a display array are described herein. In some embodiments, a display array may include two or more display devices, which may render content thereby. If an update or change to the content occurs, or if new content is requested, then that content may be assigned a higher priority level. A computing system may include a device management system that continually monitors the availability of the various display devices of the display array, and based on the content received by an applications management system of the computing system, determines which display device should render which content. For instance, an update to content displayed on a second display device may be caused to be displayed on a first display device in response to the device management system determining that the first display device is to be used for displaying high priority content. |
| US09996308B2 |
Tethering type head mounted display and method for controlling the same
Provided are a tethering-type head-mounted display (HMD), and a control method thereof. The HMD is in communications with a mobile terminal and includes a display to selectively display content. A sensor detects a state in which the HMD is worn by a user, and the HMD presents notification information about an event detected in the mobile terminal. The controller further pauses, when the sensor senses a change in the state in which the HMD is worn by the user while the notification information is being presented by the display, the presentation of the content, and generates, based on pausing the presentation of the content, bookmark information identifying the content and a point in time when the sensor senses the change in the state in which the HMD is worn by the user. |
| US09996305B2 |
Print control method for performing print process according to print data, storage medium storing print control program, and information processing apparatus controlling image forming apparatus to perform print process
A print control method that is capable of canceling the unprintable state without troubling a user. An image forming apparatus performs a print process according to print data transmitted from an information processing apparatus by the print control method. An anomaly detection step detects anomaly in a print related process, which is relevant to the print process, under execution by the information processing apparatus. A state shifting step stops the print process under execution by the image forming apparatus, and makes the image forming apparatus shift to a printable state for preparing a new print process that is different from the print process that the image forming apparatus is executing when anomaly is detected in the print related process. A reboot step reboots the information processing apparatus in response to the shift of the image forming apparatus to the printable state. |
| US09996302B2 |
Storage device writing data on the basis of stream
A storage device includes a non-volatile semiconductor memory device including a plurality of physical blocks, and a controller configured to associate one of the physical blocks with a stream ID, receive a first command including the stream ID, and in response thereto, transmit information on capacity of unwritten space in the physical block associated with the stream ID. |
| US09996301B1 |
Systems and methods for list retrieval in a storage device
Systems and methods for list retrieval in a storage device are provided that significantly reduces the number of commands needed to retrieve data. A single command or request may be issued to receive data stored at a parent node, a child node, and/or a grandchild node. For example, a request may be issued that includes a node corresponding to a particular level, a depth level below that particular level to which to obtain data and/or filter criteria. With this information, the requested information may be obtained to the depth level while filtering out information not included in the request. When the request corresponds to a parent node and information about the children nodes is desired, for example, additional requests are not needed to obtain information from all of the parent node and the children nodes. Thus, the length of time needed to provide certain stored management information is reduced. |
| US09996300B2 |
Increasing the available flash memory of a microcontroller
A method of using flash memories having an electrically erasable programmable read-only memory emulation in a microcontroller, includes: dividing information to be stored in a computer memory into a first piece of information having executable code, and a second piece of information having non-executable code. If a free storage capacity of a first memory is sufficiently large to receive the first piece of information storing the first piece of information in the first memory. If a free storage capacity of a second memory is sufficiently large to receive the second piece of information, storing the second piece of information in the second memory. Or, if the free storage capacity of the second memory is not sufficiently large to receive the second piece of information, switching off an electrically erasable programmable read only memory emulation of the second memory; freeing up the storage capacity that is no longer required due to the switching off, thereby increasing the free storage capacity of the second memory; and storing the second piece of information in the second memory. The first memory permits quicker access to the information stored therein than the second memory. |
| US09996299B2 |
Memory health monitoring
A data storage device may be configured to write first data to a first set of storage elements of a non-volatile memory and to write second data to a second set of storage elements of the non-volatile memory. The first data may be processed by a data shaping operation, and the second data may not be processed by the data shaping operation. The data storage device may be further configured to read a representation of the second data from the second set of storage cells and to determine a block health metric of a portion of the non-volatile memory based on the representation of the second data. The portion may include the first set of storage elements and the second set of storage elements. As an illustrative, non-limiting example, the first portion may be a first block of the non-volatile memory. |
| US09996295B2 |
Semiconductor memory device having buffer/sensing circuit and scrambling/descrambling method thereof
A semiconductor memory device and a scrambling method thereof are provided, which are capable of realizing a balance between a data scrambling function and an accessible time. The semiconductor memory device of the invention includes a page buffer/sense circuit with the data scrambling function. During a programming operation, the page buffer/sense circuit holds data to be programmed, performs a scrambling process on the held data and programs the scrambled data to a selected page of a memory array. During a reading operation, the page buffer/sense circuit holds data read from the selected page and performs a descrambling process on the held data. |
| US09996294B2 |
Dynamically managing a table of contents
A computer-implemented method according to one embodiment includes receiving a request to initialize a storage device, identifying a size of the storage device to be initialized, determining a size of a table of contents and a location for the table of contents within the storage device, based on the identified size of the storage device to be initialized, determining a type of the table of contents; and initializing the storage device, utilizing the determined size of the table of contents, the determined location for the table of contents, and the determined type of the table of contents. |
| US09996291B1 |
Storage system with solid-state storage device having enhanced write bandwidth operating mode
A storage system in one embodiment comprises a host processor, a volatile memory associated with the host processor, and a solid-state storage device comprising a non-volatile memory. The host processor is configured to detect a particular power condition, such as a power failure condition, and responsive to the detected power condition to direct the copying of data from the volatile memory associated with the host processor to the non-volatile memory of the solid-state storage device. In conjunction with directing the copying of data from the volatile memory associated with the host processor to the non-volatile memory of the solid-state storage device, the host processor further directs the solid-state storage device to enter an enhanced write bandwidth operating mode in which the solid-state storage device temporarily at least partially suspends at least one specified background process that would otherwise tend to restrict an achievable write bandwidth of the solid-state storage device. |
| US09996287B2 |
Virtual machine change block tracking
According to certain aspects, a system includes a client device that includes a virtual machine (VM) executed by a hypervisor, a driver located within the hypervisor, and a data agent. The VM may include a virtual hard disk file and a change block bitmap file. The driver may intercept a first write operation generated by the VM to store data in a first sector, determine an identity of the first sector based on the intercepted write operation, determine an entry in the change block bitmap file that corresponds with the first sector, and modify the entry in the change block bitmap file to indicate that data in the first sector has changed. The data agent may generate an incremental backup of the VM based on the change block bitmap file in response to an instruction from a storage manager, where the incremental backup includes the data in the first sector. |
| US09996286B2 |
Data storage system, process and computer program for such data storage system for reducing read and write amplifications
The present disclosure relates to a data storage system, and processes and computer programs for such data storage system, for example including processing of: managing one or more metadata tree structures for storing data to one or more storage devices of the data storage system in units of blocks, each metadata tree structure including a root node pointing directly and/or indirectly to blocks, and a leaf tree level having one or more direct nodes pointing to blocks, and optionally including one or more intermediate tree levels having one or more indirect nodes pointing to indirect nodes and/or direct nodes of the respective metadata tree structure; maintaining the root node and/or nodes of at least one tree level of each of at least one metadata structure in a cache memory; and managing I/O access to data based on the one or more metadata structures. |
| US09996285B2 |
Cyclically interleaved XOR array for error recovery
Memory systems may include a memory storage including at least a first stripe and a second stripe, the first stripe including data pages corresponding to the first stripe and a first parity page suitable for storing a first XOR parity, and the second stripe including data pages corresponding to the second stripe and a second parity page suitable for storing a second XOR parity, the data pages and parity pages being stored over a plurality of memory dies, wherein each memory die includes a number of planes; and a controller suitable for cyclically interleaving the data pages corresponding to the first stripe and the data pages corresponding to the second stripe. |
| US09996284B2 |
Non-volatile memory storage for multi-channel memory system
A memory system that has a multi-channel volatile memory subsystem is coupled to a non-volatile memory subsystem to provide independent, configurable backup of data. The volatile memory subsystem has one or more main memory modules that use a form of volatile memory such as DRAM memory, for which the NV subsystem provides selective persistent backup. The main memory modules are dual in-line memory modules or DIMMs using DDR SDRAM memory devices. The non-volatile memory subsystem (NV backup) includes an NV controller and non-volatile memory NVM. The NV backup can also include a memory cache to aid with handling and storage of data. In certain embodiments, the NV controller and the non-volatile memory are coupled to the one or more DIMM channels of the main memory via associated signal lines. Such signal lines can be, for example, traces on a motherboard, and may include one or more signal buses for conveying data, address, and/or control signals. The NV controller and the non-volatile memory can be mounted on the motherboard. |
| US09996282B2 |
Method of operating data storage device and method of operating system including the same
A method of operating a data storage device including a non-volatile memory device includes receiving an update command from a host; and closing a first log block, which is included in the non-volatile memory device and which includes an open word line, in response to the update command. The closing is performed to avoid update data, which is transmitted from the host and related to the update command, being subsequently written to an empty page of the first log block. |
| US09996277B2 |
Memory system and operating method of memory system
This technology relates to a memory system for processing data into a memory device and an operating method of the same. The memory system may include a memory device comprising one or more closed memory blocks each including plural pages, and a controller suitable for generating valid page counts (VPCs) for each closed memory block at least two different time points, generating a VPC offset for each closed memory block between the at least two different time points, selecting a source memory block among the closed memory blocks according to the generated VPC offsets, and performing a garbage collection operation to the selected source memory block. |
| US09996276B2 |
Memory system, memory controller and control device
According to one embodiment, a memory system includes, as an example, a temperature information receiver that receives temperature information; and a gradient determining unit that determines a gradient related to a temperature increase, based on the temperature information about a plurality of temperatures received by the temperature information receiver. |
| US09996272B2 |
Controller-mediated volume transformation in a shared-resource environment
A computer program product is provided for storage controller-mediated volume transformation in a shared-resource environment. The computer program product comprises a computer readable storage medium having program instructions embodied therewith. The program instructions are executable by a computer to cause the computer to receive, from an initiating host system, a command to send a notification to other host systems connected to a shared volume. Additionally, the programs instructions are executable by the computer to cause the computer to broadcast an interrupt to the other host systems connected to the shared volume, and receive responses from the other host systems connected to the shared volume. Moreover, the programs instructions are executable by the computer to cause the computer to notify the initiating host system of the responses received from the other host systems connected to the shared volume. |
| US09996268B2 |
Memory system and control method of the same
According to one embodiment, a memory system writes data to a first block, and executes a garbage collection when the number of free blocks is not greater than a first threshold value. The memory system calculates a first number which is a ratio of the number of copy destination blocks needed for the garbage collection to the number of blocks to which data designated by a write command is written. The memory system determines whether the first number is greater than a second threshold value when a first command is received from the host, and performs fill-up processing for the first block when the first number is not greater than the second threshold value. |
| US09996267B2 |
Adjustment of volume synchronization
Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for adjusting synchronization rates of volumes. Volumes and their copies (i.e., mirrored volumes) provide physical or virtual storage on a data storage medium. Depending on the function (i.e., the purpose) of mirrored volumes, a certain synchronization rate is recommended. Embodiments of the present invention provide systems and methods for an automatic dynamic adjustment of individual synchronization rates by adapting to changes in system workloads in order to avoid degradation of user-driven input/output (IO) and to efficiently achieve nearly 100% synchronization for all mirrored volumes. |
| US09996266B2 |
Physical address management in solid state memory
A storage system includes a memory controller connected to a solid state memory device and a read status table that tracks a pending read from the solid state memory device and a physical address of the solid state memory device that is associated with the pending read. The memory controller releases the physical address for reassignment when the read status table indicates that no pending reads are associated with the physical address. In certain embodiments, the read status table may be included within the memory controller. In certain embodiments, subsequent to the release of the physical address, erase operations may erase data at the physical address and the physical address may be reassigned to a new logical address by ensuing host write operations. |
| US09996261B2 |
Systems and methods for providing a trading interface
Systems and methods for configurable trading interfaces that allow a trader to quickly and easily submit trading commands to a trading system are provided. Using these systems and methods, a trader can using various trading interfaces to initiate trading commands, configure various display features and default command settings, and control a level of command entry verification that is provided to protect against inadvertent entry of incorrect trading commands. |
| US09996260B2 |
Terminal and method for operating same
A method for operating a terminal according to one embodiment of the present invention comprises the steps of: displaying a text tool window; receiving an inputted character sequence and displaying all of the received character sequences on the displayed text tool window; receiving an input for deleting characters for deleting a portion of the character sequences from among all of the displayed character sequences; receiving an input for recovering characters for recovering the deleted portion of the character sequences; and recovering and displaying the deleted portion of the character sequences according to the received input for recovering characters. |
| US09996259B2 |
Methods for inputting text at a touchscreen
The invention relates to a method for the detection of the selection of a character of a character string to be input from a character set on an input surface, wherein the selection of at least one character of the character string is detected by evaluating a direction vector and/or by recognizing a shape of a gesture which is input on the input surface. |
| US09996251B2 |
Selective sharing of displayed content in a view presented on a touchscreen of a processing system
A method for sharing a view presented on a touchscreen of a processing system. Whether a show gesture state is enabled on the processing system and whether a gesture event gate is open on the processing system are determined. The show gesture state determines whether a gesture detected by the touchscreen is depicted onto a version of the view shared with another processing system. The gesture event gate determines whether a corresponding gesture event is passed to an application that is active in the view. |
| US09996250B2 |
Touch motion mobile device, display control program, and display control method
A mobile device comprising a first touch panel and a second touch panel for displaying images is disclosure. A decision module is operable to indicate a touch condition, if a touch position on a first touch panel is changed to a predefined direction toward a second touch panel, and if a touch is detected on both the first touch panel and the second touch panel. A display control module is operable to display at least some of an image displayed on the second touch panel on the first touch panel in response to the touch condition. |
| US09996249B2 |
Mobile terminal and method of controlling the mobile terminal
A mobile terminal including a wireless communication unit configured to perform wireless communication; a display unit configured to display a first screen layer including first screen information; and a controller configured to display a second screen layer including second screen information such that at least part of the first and second screen layers overlap, and activate one of the first and second screen layers for receiving a touch input. |
| US09996244B2 |
User interface navigation elements for navigating datasets
One embodiment of the invention sets forth a data navigation engine that generates user interface navigation elements for navigation large and expanding datasets. The user interface navigation elements may include a pivot control zoom slider for adjusting the data resolution with respect to different zoom pivot locations, an interactive ruler for consistent visual feedback and navigation of intervals of data within the dataset, a context bar for viewing the data proximate to a current view, and a multi-scale slider for repositioning the dataset within the current view. These user interface navigation elements provide the end-user with consistent control and visual feedback while navigating the dataset, independent of the size of the dataset or the portion of the dataset displayed within the current view. Therefore, large and expanding datasets can be navigated more effectively relative to prior art approaches. |
| US09996243B2 |
System and method for scrolling through media files on touchscreen devices
A system and method for scrolling through a media file is presented. Playback of a media file is initiated. An instruction is received an instruction to enter a navigation mode. A set of one or more thumbnails is displayed. Each of the set of one or more thumbnails represents a portion of the media file. An input is received from a user indicating a desire to view a portion of the media file represented by one of the set of one or more thumbnails on the display. Playback of the media file is resumed at the portion of the media file represented by one of the set of one or more thumbnails on the display. The input from the user indicating a desire to view a portion of the media file comprises using scroll gestures on the set of one or more thumbnails to display a desired portion of the media file. The input can be made using a touch-sensitive device. The touch-sensitive device can be a touchscreen display. |
| US09996239B2 |
Enumeration and modification of cognitive interface elements in an ambient computing environment
A method and system are provided. The method includes cataloging a plurality of user interface elements belonging to a plurality of user interfaces on a plurality of devices included in an ambient computing environment. The method further includes estimating a current cognitive state of a user. The method also includes modifying at least one of the plurality of interface elements to align current cognitive demands of the ambient computing environment on the user with the current cognitive state of the user. |
| US09996230B2 |
Using sections for customization of applications across platforms
A client-based application includes sections that are used to define user interface displays for the system. The sections are customizable by a backend system so customizations are accommodated by modified versions of the mobile application. |
| US09996229B2 |
Systems and methods for analyzing performance of an entity
Systems and methods are provided for analyzing entity performance. In accordance with one implementation, a method is provided that includes receiving data associated with a geographic region and transforming the received data into an object model. The method also includes analyzing the object model to associate the received data with a plurality of entities and to associate the received data with a plurality of sub-geographic regions of the geographic region. The method also includes applying a prediction model to the plurality of sub-geographic regions using the object model to determine a predicted performance for at least one entity of the plurality of entities. Further, the method includes determining actual performance for the at least one entity and providing a user interface that includes information associated with the predicted performance, the actual performance, or a combination of the predicted performance and the actual performance. |
| US09996224B2 |
Methods, systems, and media for creating and updating a group of media content items
Methods, systems, and media for identifying and updating a group of media content items are provided. In some embodiments, the method comprises: receiving indications of filtering criteria; identifying a first collection of media content items, wherein the first collection of media content items includes media content items associated with a particular topic; identifying a first group of candidate media content items, wherein the first group of candidate media content items includes media content items not included in the first collection of media content items; creating a second collection of media content items by applying the stored filtering criteria to the first collection of media content items and the first group of candidate media content items; and causing a user interface that indicates the second collection of media content items and the identifier of the collection of media content items to be presented. |
| US09996222B2 |
Automatic deep view card stacking
A method includes receiving cards at data processing hardware. Each card represents a collection of application access mechanisms, each application access mechanism having reference to a corresponding application executable on the data processing hardware and indicating a performable operation for the corresponding application. The collection of application access mechanisms has one or more similar application access mechanism attributes. The method also includes displaying a graphical user interface on a display in communication with the data processing hardware, the graphical user interface including card user selectable links. Each card user selectable link is associated with a card and a card access mechanism having a reference to the collection of application access mechanisms represented by the card. The method further includes receiving a user input through the graphical user interface. |
| US09996221B2 |
Systems and methods for look-initiated communication
Systems and methods allow a user to interact with an augmented reality device. In one implementation, a wearable device establishes a communication path with a user of the wearable device and at least one individual. The wearable device includes a display; at least one sensor configured to provide an output indicative of a viewing direction of the user; and at least one processing device. The at least one processing device is configured to monitor the viewing direction of the user based on the output of the at least one sensor; determine, based on the monitored viewing direction, whether the user is looking in the direction of the at least one individual; and establish the communication path between the user and the at least one individual if the user is determined to be looking in the direction of the at least one individual. |