Abstract: A mass flowmeter and controller measures the mass flow rate of liquid or gaseous fluids and controls the flow rate of the fluids being utilized in a processing operation. A series of flow channels and blocked channels are micro-etched from a silicon substrate leaving an integral membrane suspended across the channels. A heater-sensor thin film resistor, diode or transistor is formed on the membranes and the substrate during manufacture to sense the temperature at particular locations. A cover housing matching channels and grooves forms flow and stagnant blocked conduits in the structure. Through a bridge circuit a signal indicative of mass flow is produced. This signal is passed to a control valve armature coil in an in-line flow control valve.

Abstract: A seat belt apparatus for use in a vehicle includes a webbing extending from a retractor upward along a center pillar of the vehicle and after passing through a slot of a through-anchor mounted at the top of the center pillar extends downward to have its forward end connected to an arm pivotally mounted on the vehicle. The seat belt apparatus also includes a manually operable member, such as handle, pedal or knob, which can be operated by the hand or foot of a passenger seated in position inside the vehicle and the manually operable member is operatively connected to the webbing or arm. The manually operable member can be operated between a first and second position and when it is moved from the first to the second position, the webbing is moved from its retracted position to an advanced position where the passenger can grab the webbing with east without taking any uncomfortable posture.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for determining or adjusting a projecting direction of a light beam emitted from an automobile headlight is provided. In a first aspect of the present invention, the peripheral region of a light beam is used in determining its projecting direction. In particular, a region definable in a light pattern of the projected beam having a proportionality relation between log S and I, where S indicates the value of an area having light intensity I or above, is determined and its outer contour or any predetermined point in the contour is used in determining the projecting direction. In a second aspect, apparatus for determining a projecting direction of a light beam emitted from an automobile headlight includes an indicator which automatically indicates a predetermined position of a light pattern of the light beam projected.

Abstract: An encoding interface is provided between input data ports and strobe output ports of a (semiconductor integrated) circuit (chip) and an array of switches (40) is connected to a series of L input data lines and output lines (31-38), whereby the L lines can alternatively strobe the switch matrix to determine the (50) position of each switch. By having each line function either as an input line or an output line at a particular instant of time, the number of switches being served by a fixed number of total input and output lines is increased. For example, with eight total lines 28 switches are accommodated when the lines function either as input or output lines while when four separate lines are dedicated as input lines and four other lines dedicated as output lines only 16 switches are accommodated. In a further embodiment using two switches and a pair of oppositely disposed diodes at each cross point in the matrix the number of switches can be doubled (to 56 with eight dual input/output lines).

Abstract: The invention relates to a conductor rail having at least one expansion joint between rigid section bars and presenting a friction shoe with a conductive guidance and friction path. In accordance with the invention, the free ends of the section bars have respective systems of interfitting parallel plates suitable for providing an expansion joint which ensures guidance continuity and electrical pickup continuity regardless of the relative longitudinal position of the section bars. Such conductive rails may be used to feed electricity to handling equipment such as cranes, travelling cranes, and container lifters.

Abstract: Desired control of the thickness and composition of a solder coat on the J-leads of an integrated circuit Quad package is obtained by orienting the packages while being solder coated in a "leads-up" orientation as a series of strips mounting the packages are passed through a solder wave of a wave soldering apparatus on a pallet. The Quad or other shaped integrated circuit or other electronic packages which have leads extending exteriorly thereof, thus have the critical lead crest portions coated with substantially the same solder layer thickness and composition. This permits reliable electrical connections between the crest portions of the leads and printed circuit board metal traces (metallization), particularly in surface mounting of the package to a printed circuit board. An additional feature of the invention is a pallet for holding a series of package-holding elongate frames which pallet is used for conveying the packages through the wave soldering apparatus.

Abstract: A controlled flow of X-ray attenuating gas such as helium is provided to an upper portion of a beam exposure chamber. A vent tube (21) extends from a lower portion of the chamber adjacent a mask to an exterior exit orifice (23) positioned at mask level to prevent ingress of air to the chamber and prevent mask membrane deflecton and change in the mask-to-silicon wafer substrate gap distance. The substrate (20) is positioned below the mask membrane and is surrounded by a mask-to-wafer zone into which is flowed a substrate fabrication process gas which is vented either by a gas flange (25) in spaced gapped relation to the mask holder and mask, or by a vent tube (46) extending from the zone to an orifice end (46a) approximate the level of the mask. There is then no pressure differential on the top and bottom surfaces of the mask membrane affecting the mask-to-wafer gap distance (8) during substrate fabrication operations.

Abstract: A draft tube mixer is disclosed particularly adapted for use with digestion processes and apparatus wherein a vertical shaft (13) is driven by motor (15) through a suitable drive (14) to rotate a ragless propeller (12). The propeller (12) has a series of three lobes or blades (40-42) which are concentrically arranged at 120.degree. apart positions so that the minimum diameter of the blades are at the ends of a hub (43) from which the blades integrally extend. The blades extend over the length of the hub over about a 360.degree. of rotary motion helix. The blades (40-42) are symmetrical from their ends to the mid points on the vanes from either direction top or bottom so that the propeller is reversible without loss of efficiency.

Abstract: A corrosion resistant electrical interconnect system has a flexible circuit with buried conductor patterns in an insulative film coating which is juxtaposed to a feed-through connector having inlet/outlet electrical contact pins therethrough. Sharp ends are present on the pins which pierce the insulative film and permit spot welding of the pin tips to portions of the conductor pattern. Other portions of the conductor pattern extend exteriorly of the flexible circuit and are electrically connected on to bond pads of an integrated circuit chip such as a sensor chip utilized in a mass flow meter.

Abstract: A carrier is provided to hold a central apertured disk while magnetic material is plated simultaneously on the annular surfaces on both sides of the disk. The carrier contains a first opening substantially the same diameter as the disk and a second opening formed about a center line offset from the center line of the first opening so as to form a recess around a portion of the edge of the first opening. The disk is inserted into the first opening and recess to block the flow of plasma and impurities from one side of the disk to the other during the disk surface coating. A two-part plug is provided for placement in and sealing the center aperture of the disk. One plug part contains a spring or magnetic means for holding the two parts together within the disk. The plug includes a knob for handling, carrying and mounting or removing the disk from the carrier.

Abstract: A semiconductor chip carrier and contact array package having an apertured dielectric bottom layer (11), one or more chip connection layers such as wire bond layers (16, 17) insulated from one another, at least one chip-holding recess (24) in the wire bond layers and a heat conductive copper heat sink insert (26) extending across the aperture of the dielectric layer and forming a base adapted to be in heat-conductive contact with the bottom of an integrated circuit chip (27) to be attached thereon whereby heat flux generated by the chip is quickly and efficiently removed from the chip body. The wire bond layers (16, 17) contains metallization patterns (29) for bonding to the chip and a grid array of contacts or connection pins (20) connected to plated through-holes in the wire bond layer(s) for plugging the carrier to a circuit board or the like.

Abstract: A handle for use in carrying and pouring from a plastic bottle comprises a single two-ended piece of flat flexible material possessing at one end means for attachment to a bottle neck and at the other end means for attachment to the bottle bottom. Between the two ends of material is formed a hand hold. The handle attaches to the bottle neck by use of two partially overlapping, nonconcentric openings the first of which slips over the bottle neck and collar and the second of which then snaps around the neck when the handle is tugged. The bottom employs a pair of integral stabilizing tabs extending inwardly of a bottle encompassing ring which upon insertion over the top of the bottle and movement downwardly over the bottle periphery extend both upwardly or one upwardly and one downwardly with respect to the ring, thus firmly gripping a lower part of the bottle.

Abstract: This data processing system for a pattern generator receives data specifying each quadrilateral element in a pattern to be generated by laser scanning or other technique. The scanning is accomplished by swaths. In the preprocessor, separate vectors are produced for the portion of each quadrilateral edge in each swath. A real time processor, including a "pipeline" or cascaded set of beam processors, is used to generate a bit map from these clipped edge vectors. The bit map itself is skew compensated to take into account relative movement between the laser scanner and the target during pattern generation.

Abstract: A plasma generator includes a cap (20) having a sintered porous aluminium cuttings diffusor disc (28) spaced from the underside of a horizontal apertured top of the cap to prevent arcing therebetween and formation of a plasma plume affecting the wafer being etched. A plasma zone of reactive gases is formed between the cap and the wafer by rf energy. Process gases are conducted through cap top apertures (26) to the zone and the resultant plasma etches the semiconductor wafer spaced in parallelism from the cap top. Arcing between the metal diffusor and the metal cap is prevented by a ledge (27) on the cap interior periphery forming a gap between the bottom surface of the cap top and top surface of the diffusor. Etching or sputtering of the cap is also prevented by increasing the surface area of the apertures in the cap top to prevent ions from gaining a level of kinetic energy greater than the sputter threshold energy.

Abstract: An adjustable torsion bar assembly (10) includes a torsion bar frame (9) having upstanding legs (17, 18) and a structural frame (22) for holding a tip-up bed (11). A pair of torsion rods (20, 21) extend between a frame leg and a structural frame side. A lead screw (31) having threaded portions (32, 33) threaded in opposed helices extends between the structural frame sides which upon rotation moves a pair of pivot plates (35, 36) either inwardly or outwardly in unison. Each pivot plate includes a torsion rod-confining aperture (53, 54) in sliding engagement with a portion of a torsion span of rods as rotation of the lead screw adjusts the movement of the pivot plates along the rods changing the effective span of the torsion rods.

Abstract: A carrier is provided to hold a disk while magnetic material is plated simultaneously on the two surfaces of the disk. The carrier contains a first opening substantially the same diameter as the disk and a second opening formed about a center line offset from the center line of the first opening so as to form a recess around a portion of the edge of the first opening. The recess allows the disk to be mounted into the carrier by placing the disk in a portion of the first opening and in a portion of the recess without having a surface of the disk touch the surface of the recess. The disk is then lowered into the first opening while leaving the remainder of the carrier material adjacent the recess to block the flow of plasma and impurities from one side of the disk to the other during the coating of the surfaces of the disk with magnetic media. A plug is provided for placement in the center hole of the disk.

Abstract: A lime slaking system for hydration of lime and removal of unwanted grit, particularly for formation of reactive slaked lime to be used in SO.sub.2 scrubbing of effluent gases, comprising a series of slaking vessels (10, 12) for reacting CaO and water while agitating the reactants, a dilution mix tank (14) receiving a viscous slaked lime slurry from the vessels, diluent for the dilution tank comprising an upstream classifier overflow stream (16), a cyclone (19) receiving pumped diluted slurry from tank (14), the overflow (21) of the cyclone providing usable slaked lime product and the underflow (22) exiting to the upstream classifier (24) where grit materials are separated and removed. Dilution for effective classification is provided by spent scrubbing process water containing appreciable sulfate ions.

Abstract: A touch tablet (10) for determination of x-axis and y-axis coordinates of point touched includes a two-layer operating structure, each layer (11,21) containing a resistive bar (12,22) at an edge portion of an insulative substrate and a series of interdigitated conductive pathways (14,15) extending toward and away from the bar and an opposed conductive strip (13,33,43) on at least one of the layers. The bars and conductive pathways are orthogonally with respect to one another on each layer and further are orthogonal on one layer with respect to those bars and pathways on the other layer. A potential typically of 5 V is impressed on either one end of each of the resistive bars or on the interdigitated pathways.The two layers (11,21 or 31,41) are normally spaced from each other by insulative dots (6) on one facing surface or by an embossed peripheral ridge (56) on the top surface.

Abstract: A dual motor linear actuator is disclosed for use in a magnetic disc drive device. It includes a carriage reciprocatably guided between a pair of guide rails, with the accessing transducers being mounted to its inner end. Separate rectangular drive coils are affixed in symmetrical outboard relationship at the sides of the body of the carriage. The actuator assembly further includes two pairs of slab shaped magnets mounted to E-shaped magnet support structures that are integrally formed with the base of the disc drive device. The magnets are mounted to form two air gaps that are symmetrically disposed relative to a center plane and so that they respectively cooperate with the drive coils to apply motive forces on the carriage generally along two lines that are equidistantly spaced from the aforesaid plane of symmetry. The outer ends of pole pieces of the two magnet support structures are rigidly interconnected by a single plate that acts as an end pole piece for both magnet support structures.