International Business Machines Corporation

Other

Donald E Davis

Edward V Weber

Hans C Pfeiffer

Cecil T Ho

Maris A Sturans

Samuel Kay Doran

William A Enichen

Philip M Ryan

Guenther O Langner

Millard A Habegger

Ollie C Woodard

Ralph R Trotter

Merlyn H Perkins

Richard D Moore

Ken Tze-Kin Chan

Jon Erik Lieberman

Hannon S Yourke

Maurice C Williams

George W Cann

A street paddle assembly for propelling, balancing, and slowing the user upon a skateboard includes a shaft, a tube, and a foot. The shaft comprises a plurality of sections, which are selectively mutually engageable so that the sections are linearly oriented. A connector engaged to each of the plurality of sections is positioned to retain the sections in proximity when the sections are mutually disengaged. The foot is engaged to a lower end of the shaft and can frictionally engage a surface. The tube is selectively engageable to an upper end of the shaft and extends bidirectionally therefrom. The tube and the shaft can be grasped in a respective hands of a user, positioning the user to utilize the assembly. Each of a pair of caps selectively engageable to a respective opposed endpoint of the tube retain an article positioned in the tube.

Street paddle assembly

A reticle for an electron beam system for direct writing applications has a base layer that contains a reticle pattern; a set of reinforcing struts connected to the base layer separating the base layer into a set of non-contiguous subfields; in which the pattern is carried by a set of apertures areas in said base layer; and in which the set of non-contiguous subfields has overlapping rim portions in which the overlap portions of corresponding lines have a pattern that produces the correct exposure when the subfields are correctly aligned and minimizes pattern feature discontinuities when the subfields are misaligned. A corresponding method consists of overlapping the reticle at the field or subfield boundaries and forming a spatial breakup or a partially transmissive area of the pattern elements contained in the overlapped areas, preventing shorts and open failures in the lines or pattern elements and providing additional tolerance for the alignment of the adjacent fields or subfields.

Reticle having a number of subfields

A pattern is aligned and exposed with a lithography system so that chips larger than the deflection field can be formed by exposing M.times.N fields in a mosaic pattern. The method corrects the deflection field to compensate for the orientation of a previous pattern on a substrate and compensates for errors due to height caused by the beam landing non perpendicular to the target. Two basic procedures disclosed are called '3-mark' which are only applicable to 2.times.2 arrays of fields, and 'M.times.N' which covers the general situation, but with slightly less accuracy.

Registration of patterns formed of multiple fields

A three phase alternator is driven by a variable speed prime mover, and its rectified output is pulse width modulated by a gate controlled H-bridge power switch circuit. Predetermined pairs of power switches are gated on and off according to programmed duration and timing instructions contained in a read only memory. In a first embodiment, a sine wave output is produced by successive pulse trains. The first pulse train has alternating positive and negative constant amplitude pulses, with the widths of positive pulses varying sinusoidally and the widths of negative pulses being constant. The second pulse train has alternating positive and negative pulses of constant amplitude, with the pulse widths of the negative pulse components varying sinusoidally, and the pulse widths of the positive components being constant. The components of the first and second pulse trains have an energy distribution which corresponds to one cycle of a sine wave having a fixed frequency. The pulse width modulated waveform is filtered to produce a smooth, low distortion sine wave output waveform. In a second embodiment, the on and off states, and the duration and timing of the on and off states, are controlled to produce a pseudo sine output power wave having an RMS value of 120 VAC at 60 Hz.

Regulated AC power system energized by variable speed prime mover

A three-stage E-beam deflection system employs breaking the entire field to be scanned into clusters and sub-fields. The scanning provided by the first stage of deflection which scans within the entire field is rectilinear and discontinuous with the scan stopping in the center of each of the clusters where an exposure is to be made, and scanning is the same within each cluster from sub-field to sub-field. The scanning within a cluster by the second stage stops in the center of each sub-field where exposure is to be made. The third stage uses high speed electrostatic deflection to provide scanning with a vector scanning mode within the sub-field being scanned.

Tri-deflection electron beam system

This system employs writing of lithographic patterns with a shaped electron beam exposure system which minimizes the time wasted by workpiece positional requirements. The writing field contains an array of sub-fields written in a raster sequence. The large width of the writing field provided by the VAIL system reduces the number of mechanical scans required to write the pattern on the workpiece which further reduces the time required for workpiece positioning. When patterns are being superimposed over previously written patterns, registration is employed. This system includes a registration field confined to local areas on the workpiece, which is larger than the writing field, without requiring change in focus and without requiring the mechanical system comprising the X-Y work table to change speed during the registration and reregistration of the various fields on a semiconductor wafer or mask. The registration field can be larger than the writing field is possible because the quality requirements demanded from the shaped electron beam are less for detecting the locations of such registration marks at the various locations on the wafer.

Electron beam writing method and system using large range deflection in

An X-Y positioning system for electron beam lithography employs an adaptive drive system for feedback control. A gradually increasing drive voltage, superimposed upon a step wave, is summed with the position error signal to achieve position within the system deadband zone. The drive voltage, while superimposed upon the error voltage, increases until mechanical friction and drift in the deadband zone are overcome. A function generator alters the error signal such that the combined error signal and drive voltage cause the system to approach the null point minimizing servo oscillations. A limit circuit determines when the system has reached a set of inner limits and generates an operative output signal to the signal controller which continues until the position exceeds a second, outer set of limits.

X-Y Positioning subsystem electronics

This describes an automatic defect inspection system as could be applied to metallized masks or other patterns. The system causes each subfield to be individually aligned for inspection irrespective of the previous alignment of the pattern or any other sub-field. This is accomplished by scanning a preselected portion of each sub-field and adjusting the position of the scan based on the resulting signal while scanning a pre-established portion of the sub-field. In this way a portion of each sub-field is used as an alignment mark and stepping errors avoided. Once alignment is achieved a probe, comparable to the size of the minimum defect to be detected is scanned over the sub-field with an overlapping pattern to find defects such as excessive metal, metal in improper places or points where the metal is missing.

Pattern inspection tool - method and apparatus

A method and apparatus is described for performing automatic overlay measurements on wafers utilized in semiconductor manufacturing. The overlay measurements are made at selected sites on a given wafer where a single bar pattern has been overlaid over a double bar pattern. The position of the single bar center line with respect to the center line between the double bars is a direct indication of the overlay error of the two patterns. The overlay error is measured in both the X and Y dimensions and is utilized to monitor the overlay error or to produce statistics and correlations to system parameters so that the sources of overlay errors may be identified and the errors eliminated or minimized on subsequent wafers being processed.

Automatic overlay measurements using an electronic beam system as a

A square shaped beam of charged particles is passed over a registration mark in the surface of a semiconductor wafer. A signal produced by a diode detector that is responsive to backscattered electrons will peak when the beam passes over each of the edges of the registration mark. The signal is differentiated; and the resultant signal is filtered and amplified to provide information regarding the position of the beam with respect to the wafer. If more than one diode detector is used, the signals are added just before or just after the differentiation.

Apparatus for detecting registration marks on a target such as a

In abstract, a preferred embodiment of this invention is a device for cleaning gutters without having to use stepladders or other elevating means. This invention is in the form of a novel nozzle used in conjunction with wet/dry vacuum systems.

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Poughkeepsie, NY, United States of America

Donald E Davis