Abstract: A new structure and method is provided for the creation of an inductor on the surface of a silicon semiconductor substrate. The inductor is of a helix coil design having upper level and lower level conductors further having an axis whereby the axis of the helix coil of the inductor is parallel to the plane of the underlying substrate. Under the first embodiment of the invention, the height of the helix coil that is created on the surface of a silicon substrate is uniform. Under the second embodiment of the invention the height of the helix coil of the inductor of the invention is uniform while a ferromagnetic core is inserted between the upper and the lower level conductors of the helix coil. Under the third embodiment of the invention, the height of the helix coil that is created on the surface of a silicon substrate is non-uniform.

Abstract: A new structure is provided for the creation of an inductor on the surface of a silicon semiconductor substrate. The inductor is of spiral design and perpendicular to the plane of the underlying substrate. Conductor line width can be selected as narrow or wide, ferromagnetic material can be used to fill the spaces between the conductors of the spiral inductor. The spiral inductor of the invention can further by used in series or in series with conventional horizontal inductors.

Abstract: A video frame is decomposed into blocks of pixels. Blocks that contain moving edges are not processed further. The remaining blocks are examined for the likelihood of having color bleeding artifacts, and not processed further if the likelihood is low. The likelihood is determined by examining statistics of the chrominance values. The remaining blocks are de-color bleeding filtered at the chrominance plane, without affecting the corresponding luminance plane.

Abstract: The present invention provides improved magnetic recording media comprising a substrate, a non-magnetic underlayer, and a cobalt alloy based magnetic layer in a hexagonal closely-packed structure. An optional thin magnetic or non-magnetic intermediate layer is disposed between the magnetic layer and the substrate. The multilayer thin films of this invention are subjected to heat treatment after deposition. The multilayer films of this invention provide significant improvement in magnetic properties for longitudinal magnetic recording.

Abstract: A method for identifying and categorizing an audio signal into subclasses to determine a subframe block size of a transform coder. A number of block sizes available for the transform coder is determined. An input audio signal is then sampled at predetermined time intervals to produce a plurality of samples, which are grouped into frames, in which each frame has an equal number of samples. The frames are analyzed in a time domain to produce at least one comparison index, after which an appropriate block size is selected for the transform coder.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for compensating non-uniformity of imaging response is described. A plurality of locations on the imaging device is selected. The light intensity for each of the selected location is measured. The measured light intensities are normalized using a reference light intensity and the normalized light intensities are stored in a memory.

Abstract: An embodiment of the invention is directed to a method of building an electronic file, using an electronic camera such as a digital camera, that captures 3-dimensional objects. A number of image data tiles that represent the images are generated by the camera. A number of text data tiles each containing text recognized in a corresponding one of the image data tiles is generated. The method includes searching for overlapping text in the text tiles, and pasting the text tiles in proper alignment into an electronic file.

Abstract: What is disclosed is a method including downloading a sequence of images from an image sensor, and then marking on a map a pixel location of the sensor defective if a Defective Vote score exceeds a first threshold, the score tallied over all captured images. The defective pixel map is stored on a host computer, which performs the defective pixel detection on behalf of the sensor, rather than directly on the device incorporating the image sensor.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for determining a focus value in an image, including selecting an area of interest in the image and a color plane of interest, is described. The color plane of interest within the area of interest is filtered to produce a filtered region. The mean absolute value of the filtered region is determined.

Abstract: Provided is a dynamic bit allocation apparatus and method for audio coding which can be used widely for almost all digital audio compression systems and besides implemented simply with low cost. The bit allocation apparatus and method perform a very efficient bit allocation process, paying attention to a psychoacoustics behavior of the human audio characteristics with a simplified simultaneous masking model. In this process, peak energies of units in frequency divisional bands are computed, and a masking effect that is a minimum audio limit with the use of a simplified simultaneous masking effect model is computed and set as an absolute threshold for each unit. Then, a signal-to-mask ratio of each unit is computed, and then, based on this, an efficient dynamic bit allocation is performed.

Abstract: A method of processing an image by generating transform data in response to performing at least one discrete wavelet transform based upon original image data, generating adjusted data by combining noise with the transform data, and generating compressed data representing the image by quantizing based upon the adjusted data.

Abstract: A method of processing an image by generating transform data in response to performing at least one discrete wavelet transform based upon original image data, generating adjusted data by combining noise with the transform data, and generating compressed data representing the image by quantizing based upon the adjusted data.

Abstract: A method of analyzing defects in a magnetic thin film is provided. A magnetic field is applied to the magnetic thin film. The magnetization of the magnetic thin film is measured over a range of different field strengths. A value representative of a magnetic hardness coefficient is calculated for the magnetic thin film from the magnetizations measured. The calculated value is compared with a reference value. Defect information is determined in dependence upon the comparison made.

Abstract: A stereo audio encoding method for encoding left and right original signals to a left and right reproduced signals for suppressing a loss of quality in the reproduced audio signal. The correlation between the right and left channel signals is determined, and the phase of each signal is compared. If the two signals have the same phase, a modified scale factor is calculated based on a power equalization method, but if the two signals are in opposite phase, another modified scale factor is calculated based on an error minimization method. The modified scale factors are used for calculating the reproduced signals.

Abstract: This improvement is the process of using a few well collimated and even radiative heating lights to heat up the liquid crystal film, which is spread over the surface of the die of an integrated circuit. The radiative heating of the liquid crystal film from the top helps to form an even temperature profile on the liquid temperature film. The rapid time response of the heating filament temperature and the radiative heating process induces a rapid response in the liquid crystal film temperature. By repeatedly turning on and turning off the heating lights at an appropriate power setting, the temperature of the liquid crystal film will repeatedly rise above and drop below the liquid crystal phase transition temperature. During this temperature rise and drop process, the liquid crystal film temperature is brought to infinesimally close below to the liquid crystal phase transisiton temperature, for a limited length of time. We call this temperature control process the infinitesimal temperature control method.