Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Comp. Ltd.

National Applied Research Laboratories

Chung-I Huang

Meng-Sheng Chang

Shao-Yu Chou

Shao-Ting Wu

Fang-Pang Lin

Chien-Hao Tseng

A fusible structure includes: a metal line in a first metal layer extending along a first direction; and a first dummy structure disposed proximal to the metal line relative to a second direction, the second direction being perpendicular to the first direction, the first dummy structure being in a second metal layer. Relative to the first direction, the metal line includes first, second and third portions, the second portion being between the first portion and third portion. Relative to a third direction that is perpendicular to the first direction and the second direction, the first portion has a first thickness and the second portion has a second thickness, the first thickness being greater than the second thickness.

Fusible structures

A method (fabricating a fusible structure) includes forming a metal line that extends in a first direction, the forming a metal line including: configuring the mask such that the metal line has a first portion that is between a second portion and a third portion; and using an optical proximity correction technique with a mask so that the first portion has a first thickness that is thinner than a second thickness of each of the second portion and the third portion; and forming a first dummy structure proximal to the metal line and aligned with the first portion relative to the first direction.

Methods of manufacturing fusible structures

A fusible structure includes a metal line with different portions having different thicknesses. Thinner portions of the metal line are designed to be destructively altered at lower voltages while thicker portions of the metal line are designed to be destructively altered at lower voltages. Furthermore, one or more dummy structures are disposed proximal to the thinner portions of the metal line. In some embodiments, dummy structures are placed with sufficient proximity so as to protect against metal sputtering when metal line is destructively altered.

Fusible structures and methods of manufacturing same

An image-based vehicle classification system includes a camera and an image server connected to the camera. The camera captures images of a road to result in an image stream. The image server includes a processor for receiving the image stream from the camera. For each of the images of the image stream, the processor performs image segmentation, a thinning process, an erosion process and a dilation process, and classifies, by a neural network classifier, a vehicle image part contained in the image into one of a large-size car class, a passenger car class and a motorcycle class when it is determined that the vehicle image is crossing an imaginary line set in advance in the image for counting vehicles.

Image-based vehicle classification system

A method for estimating a number of objects is to be implemented by a processing module, and is utilized to estimate a number of a plurality of objects having elongated shapes based on an image of the objects that contains substantially-circular end faces of the objects. The method includes steps of generating a characteristic image based on the image of the objects, the characteristic image containing a plurality of characteristic patterns which are associated with the end faces of the objects, calculating a number of the characteristic patterns based on the characteristic image, and obtaining an estimated number of the objects based on at least the number of the characteristic patterns thus calculated.

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Hsinchu, Taiwan

Chung-I Huang