International Business Machines Corporation

Other

James T Yeh

Frederick Yung-Fung Wu

Benjamin N Eldridge

Alfred Grill

Thomas Anthony Wassick

James L Speidell

Arthur R Zingher

Seshashayee Sankarshana Murthy

Robert J Baseman

Charles Allan Brown

Chengjun Julian Chen

John J Ritsko

Joseph S Logan

Herman Russell Wendt

Kurt A Smith

Laura Beth Rothman

Douglas W Cooper

Amit Garg

Yaffa Tomkiewicz

John R Lankard

Henry J Grabarz

William M Holber

Henry L Wolfe

John J Donelon

Yu-Li Chou

Steven J Kirch

An apparatus and a method for imaging the mouth area laterally to produce reliable measurements of mouth and lip shapes for use in assisting the speech recognition task. A video camera is arranged with a headset and a microphone to capture a lateral profile image of a speaker. The lateral profile image is then used to compute features such as lip separation, lip shape and intrusion depth parameters. The parameters are used in real time, during speech recognition process to characterize and discriminate spoken phonemes to produce a high degree of accuracy in automatic speech recognition processing, especially in a noisy environment.

Speech recognition aided by lateral profile image

A plurality of near-optimum solutions to allocations of resources to demand information are provided by consideration of different combinations of sources of resource information such as inventory and performance/production capacity of a provider and/or other providers by the use of one or more algorithm/agents and a problem formulator which selects algorithms to be applied and provides selected information from selected sources of resource information thereto. The effects of actions or allocations specified in the solutions are presented to a user for comparison, modification and selection for implementation. Effects of modified solutions are also projected for comparison with other solutions or modified solutions.

Assistant for resource and demand trading

A computer-implemented method for double auction trade-building by matching, based on feasibility and price/cost heuristics, a plurality of electronically posted bid with a plurality of electronically posted ask records. A one-pass sequential trade building method selects ask records one at a time and sequentially inserts, in one pass, as many of the bid records as possible while maintaining feasibility criteria. A two pass sequential trade building method inserts the bid records in two stages, the first terminating when the trade becomes feasible and the second when no further bids can be inserted.

Method and apparatus for electronic trading of carrier cargo capacity

During wafer fabrication, a transportable enclosure, such as a Standard Manufacturing InterFace (SMIF) pod encloses a nascent product, such as a semiconductor wafer, to protect the wafer against contamination during manufacture, storage or transportation. However chemical vapors emitted inside the pod can accumulate in the air and degrade wafers during subsequent fabrication. In order to absorb the vapors inside a closed pod, a vapor removal element typically including an activated carbon absorber, covered by a particulate-filtering vapor-permeable barrier, and covered by a guard plate with holes is disposed within the enclosure. A vapor removal element is disposed closely adjacent to each respective wafer. Alternatively, a single vapor removal element is located inside the enclosure. In certain instances, a fan or thermo-buoyant circulation causes any vapors located inside the enclosure to a vapor removal element for removal. Alternatively a porous vapor removal element may be disposed for removing vapors from air entering the enclosure. In another embodiment a vapor removal element is integrated with the back face of each wafer.

Vapor drain system

An electron cyclotron resonance plasma heating apparatus system and process in which microwave energy is transmitted directly in an axial direction through an evacuated chamber to generate energetic electrons. These energetic electrons spiral around the magnetic field lines formed by the solenoid and spiral substantially parallel to the axis. A metal atom vapor source transmits the metal atom vapor into the chamber through a housing port in the chamber wall. The metal atom vapor source in the housing is out of the line of sight of the substrate. The metal atoms are ionized by the energized electrons, and these ionized metal atoms are confined to the plasma column substantially free of neutral atoms as such ionized metal approaches and contacts the substrate in said evacuated chamber. In this way, the ionized metal atoms substantially avoid contact with the wall of chamber. A sputter target of a second metal may be placed in the plane of the substrate and a bias voltage applied to the target. Atoms of the second metal are then sputtered off and ionized by the plasma and are deposited on the substrate with the first metal ions.

Method and apparatus for filing high aspect patterns with metal

The present invention is a mask and methods for making masks for use with a laser projection etching system. The unique mask is able to withstand the fluences of the high energy and high power lasers used without degrading. Specifically, the new projection etching masks are fabricated of patterned multiple dielectric layers having alternating high and low indices of refraction on a UV grade synthetic fused silica substrate in order to achieve maximum reflectivity of the laser energy in the opague areas and maximum transmissivity of the laser energy in the transparent areas of the mask.

High energy laser mask and method of making same

An apparatus and method for electrostatic removal of micron and sub-micron sized contaminant particles is disclosed herein. The apparatus and method comprise creating a potential difference with a megavolt/cm electrostatic field between two conducting bases in a predetermined geometrical relation to each other. An insulator (e.g. a dielectric film) is maintained at or near contact between one of the bases and the surface to be cleaned to electrostatically remove particles from said surface. The bases can be made to move relative to each other and the surface to be cleaned.

Electrostatic removal of contaminants

A differential material removal process wherein a selected material can be rapidly removed without adverse impact to surrounding layers of different materials. Ultraviolet radiation is used to selectively remove metal without adversely harming adjacent polymer layers, in a metal-polymer multilayer structure. The wavelength (100-400 nm) of the ultraviolet radiation and the energy fluence per pulse are selected so that the removal rate of metal due to thermal processes is significantly greater than the removal rate of the polymer by ablative photodecomposition. This can occur at an energy fluence per pulse level greater than that at which the etch rate of the polymer begins to level off. For example, copper of a thickness less than 5 microns is rapidly etched in one or two pulses while adjacent polyimide layers are substantially unetched by the application of ultraviolet pulses of wave-lengths 248-351 nm, at energy fluences per pulse in excess of approximately 3 or 4 J/cm.sup.2.

Selective metal etching in metal/polymer structures

This patent specification describes a technique for protectively coating the electrodes in a plasma patterning device so as to minimize the effect of backscattering of electrode material. The potentials present in a patterning chamber are such that electrode sputtering material may occur. If the material of the electrode where the sample is mounted (RIE mode) or the material of the counterelectrode (plasma etch mode) of the reaction chamber is not etchable in the etchant present, electrode material can be sputtered off, backscattered on the polymer surface, and cause incomplete etching. Polymer films, patterned in fine dimensions by masking and etching, are widely used in microelectronics. If backscattered material present in the etch area cannot be etched as fast as the polymer film, the back-scattered material on the polymer film surface will cause partial masking and incomplete etching, leaving spikes of polymer. Coating the electrode with the same polymer, or with a photoresist or different polymer of corresponding etch rate, precludes such incomplete etching; the etched hole is very clean, without spikes. The coating on the electrodes may be very thick so as not to require frequent recoating.

Electrode treatment for plasma patterning of polymers

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Katonah, NY, United States of America

James T Yeh