Abstract: There is disclosed an electrostatic holding apparatus in which a voltage is applied to an conductive electrode covered with an insulating dielectric layer in order to cause the insulating dielectric layer to electrostatically attract an object. The main component of the insulating dielectric layer is ceramic containing 0.1-30 wt. % of an atomic metal, and the volume resistivity of the metal-containing ceramic at 20° C. is 108-1013 &OHgr;·cm. The metallic element is Mo or W. In the electrostatic holding apparatus, since the volume resistivity of an insulating dielectric layer of an electrostatic attraction portion is decreased, a strong electrostatic force can be generated. Also, there can be maintained the capability of allowing removal of an object at the time of stopping application of voltage. Further, since neither fine cracks nor pores remain in the insulating dielectric layer after sintering, the withstand voltage is high.

Abstract: There is disclosed an electrostatic holding apparatus in which a voltage is applied to an electrode formed of a conductive layer disposed on an insulator layer and covered with an insulating dielectric layer in order to cause the insulating dielectric layer to electrostatically attract an object. The electrostatic holding apparatus is formed of a sintered body in which a thermal expansion mitigating layer is disposed between the insulating dielectric layer and the conductive layer and/or between the conductive layer and the insulator layer. The insulating dielectric layer, the conductive layer, the insulator layer, and the thermal expansion mitigating layer are superposed and press-formed in an unfired state to obtain a green body, which is then sintered to obtain the sintered body.

Abstract: A temporarily labelled image data generating circuit is composed of an initial label memory, which stores the initial temporary label values of pixels that are connected within the line being scanned, and a run length counter, which counts the number of pixels of the connected pixels, and finally labelled image data is generated following the generation of temporarily labelled image data and temporary label table data, which indicate the conversion relation for the modification of the temporary labels, using the initial label memory and run length counter, which improves the processing speed by reducing the number of times the memory is accessed and reduces the storage capacity of the working memory.