Abstract: A method of forming an electronic component package includes: forming electrically conductive traces for connecting first selected bond pads of a plurality of bond pads on a first surface of an electronic component to corresponding bonding locations formed on a second surface of the electronic component; coupling the first surface of the electronic component to a first surface of a lower dielectric strip; coupling the second surface of the electronic component to a first surface of an upper dielectric strip; forming lower via apertures through the lower dielectric strip to expose second selected bond pads of the plurality of bond pads on the first surface of the electronic component; forming upper via apertures through the upper dielectric strip to expose the bonding locations on the second surface of the electronic component; filling the lower and upper via apertures with an electrically conductive material to form lower and upper vias electrically coupled to the first and second selected bond pads of the pl

Abstract: A method and apparatus for providing a customizable content tooltip provides a customizable content tooltip including a customization control that, when activated, allows a user to choose and/or edit the content displayed by the customizable content tooltip.

Abstract: A film-on-wire spacer covers an entire upper surface of a lower electronic component. Accordingly, an upper electronic component is supported above bond pads and lower bond wires of the lower electronic component. This decreases the stress on the upper electronic component, e.g., during wirebonding, and thus decreases the chance of cracking the upper electronic component. Further, the lower bond wires are enclosed in and protected by the film-on-wire spacer. Further, the film-on-wire spacer is thin resulting in a minimum height of the stacked electronic component package.

Abstract: A method and system for multiple column/row data sorting includes a process for multiple column/row data sorting whereby a user is provided with a simple and visually intuitive interface for prioritizing the progressive sorting of data displayed in data tables by multiple columns or rows.

Abstract: An integral plated semiconductor package substrate stiffener provides a low-cost and space-efficient mechanism for maintaining substrate planarity during the manufacturing process. By patterning and plating the stiffener along with the other substrate fabrication process steps, the difficulty of attaching a separate stiffener is averted. Also, the stiffener pattern can be provided around other substrate elements such as the circuit patterns and terminals, while maintaining requisite spacing. The stiffener is a two-layer metal structure, the first layer is a thin film metal layer on which a thicker outer metal layer is plated up. The two metal layers may be of different metals or alloys and the thin film metal layer may be the same layer plane that provides one of the substrate interconnect layers or may be the metal layer removed from other areas of the substrate during isolation of an embedded circuit layer.

Abstract: A semiconductor package including top-surface terminals for mounting another semiconductor package provides a three-dimensional circuit configuration that can provide removable connection of existing grid-array packages having a standard design. A semiconductor die is mounted on an electrically connected to a circuit substrate having terminals disposed on a bottom side for connection to an external system. The die and substrate are encapsulated and vias are laser-ablated or otherwise formed through the encapsulation to terminals on the top surface of the substrate that provide a grid array mounting lands to which another grid array semiconductor package may be mounted. The bottom side of the vias may terminate and electrically connect to terminals on the substrate, terminals on the bottom of the semiconductor package (through terminals) or terminals on the top of the semiconductor die.

Abstract: A plurality of processor cores on a chip is operated in a normal fashion in a debug and diagnostic mode of operation of the processor. A crossbar switch on the chip couples and decouples the plurality of processors to a plurality of banks in a level-two (L2) cache that is also on the chip. As data is passed from each of the processor cores through the crossbar switch to the L2 cache, the data in cached in a first plurality of banks of the L2 cache. The commands associated with the data and information concerning the status of the data in the level-one cache are logged in another plurality of banks of the L2 cache. This logged information can be readout and used in diagnosis and debugging of L1 and L2 cache problems.

Abstract: A method for securing a communication between a peer node and an intermediary peer node in a peer-to-peer network comprises the peer node generating a secured communication request to the intermediary peer node. The intermediary peer node authenticates the peer node in response to the secured communication request. The intermediary peer node issues a signed certificate of authority upon successful authentication.

Abstract: In one embodiment an IO request packet (IRP) attempting to access a computer disk is evaluated to determine if the request identifies an area of a computer disk to be accessed that is marked as bad in a file system. When the request identifies an area of the computer disk to be accessed that is marked as bad in a file system, the request is assumed to be indicative of a rootkit. In another embodiment an IO request packet is evaluated to determine if the request identifies an area of the computer disk to be accessed that was not identified in requests detected in the file system level of the kernel. When the stalled request identifies an area of the computer disk to be accessed not detected in requests detected in the file system level of the kernel, the request is assumed to be indicative of a rootkit.

Abstract: In an anti-virus scanning system for computer files being transferred between computers, the number of files requiring detailed scanning is first reduced by identifying files which are instances of programs which are known and deemed to be safe. This is done by reference to a database of known executables which records characteristics which can be used as the basis for identifying a file as an unchanged instance of a known executable. Secondly, these characteristics can then also be used to identify files which are changed instances of known executables. These are extremely suspicious, since the most likely cause of change is infection by a file infecting virus, so these files are classed as likely to be malware.

Abstract: Methods and apparatuses for detecting hidden network channels of rootkit tools are described. In one embodiment, critical endpoint events detected at an endpoint computer system are selectively logged to an endpoint database. Also, critical network events associated with the endpoint computer system and detected on a network are selectively logged to a gateway database. Periodically some or all of the entries in the endpoint database are compared to entries in the gateway database. Entries detected at the network but not detected at the endpoint computer system are presumed indicative of hidden network channels of rootkit tools.

Abstract: Accesses to critical tokens are monitored and malicious changes to the security privileges of those critical tokens are detected and prevented.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for ambiguous-state support in virtual machine emulators executes a suspect application in a core emulation model for all versions, variations, or generations of a given computer system component and then branches at the point where ambiguous behavior is detected, i.e., at the occurrence/request/trigger of a version variable behavior by the suspect application. The state of the emulation up to the version variable behavior branch point is then copied, and each variable behavior branch is further emulated using variable specific emulation models and only from the point of ambiguity, i.e., from the point of variable behavior, forward.

Abstract: Temporary credit card information is automatically obtained and input to online credit card purchases allowing users to protect their actual credit card information from interception while shopping online.

Abstract: A method includes running a set of policies simultaneously using two levels of optimizations. After selecting the policies to be run, the number of technical controls performed is minimized by coalescing (unioning) the technical controls of the policies in the first level of optimization. Further, the number of queries performed is minimized by coalescing (unioning) the queries of the technical controls in the second level of optimization. The technical controls and queries performed are determined by the set of polices that are to be run, in a policy driven manner.

Abstract: Data streams are scanned to detect malicious jump-call-pop shellcode constructs used in attacks against stack-based buffer overflow vulnerabilities on software executing in the IA32 architecture prior to execution. Upon a detection of a malicious jump-call-pop shellcode construct, protective action is taken, such as preventing the malicious shellcode from executing.

Abstract: A multithreading processor achieves a very large lookahead instruction window by allowing non-sequential fetch and processing of the dynamic instruction stream. A speculative thread is spawned at a specified point in the dynamic instruction stream and the instructions subsequent to the specified point are speculatively executed so that these instructions are fetched and issued out of sequential order. Very minimal modifications to existing processor design of a multithreading processor are required to achieve the very large lookahead instruction window. The modifications include changes to the control logic of the issue unit, only three additional bits in the register scoreboard.

Abstract: A technique for coordinating execution of instructions in a processor that allows instructions to execute out-of-order includes decoding a particular instruction that is defined in accordance with an instruction set of the processor. A helper sequence of instructions that corresponds to the particular instruction is then introduced into a stream of executable operations. The corresponding helper sequence includes a first artificial dependency instruction that codes a dependency on a register that is not actually employed as a register source or target for an operation performed by the particular instruction.

Abstract: Risk events occurring on a computer system are logged over time and a risk profile is dynamically generated and updated based on the logged risk events. In one embodiment, a security policy is dynamically set and updated based on the risk profile.

Abstract: Inspecting a currently fetched instruction group and determining branching behavior of the currently fetched instruction group, allows for intelligent instruction prefetching. A currently fetched instruction group is predecoded and, assuming the currently fetch instruction group includes a branch type instruction, a branch target is characterized in relation to a fetch boundary, which delimits a memory region contiguous with the memory region that hosts the currently fetched instruction group. Instruction prefetching is included based, at least in part, on the predecoded characterization of the branch target.