Abstract: Integrated circuits employing titanium nitride are significantly improved by using a specific method for formation of the titanium nitride in the device fabrication. In particular, a plasma such as one formed in an electron cyclotron resonance apparatus is employed to dissociate a source of nitrogen and a source of hydrogen and the dissociation products are combined at the integrated circuit deposition substrate with titanium tetrachloride. The resulting deposition is essentially devoid of chlorine and has advantageous step-coverage properties.

Abstract: In accordance with the present invention, a field emission device is made by pre-activating ultra-fine diamond particles before applying them to the device substrate. This initial pre-activation increases manufacturing speed and reduces cost and reduces potential damage to the device substrate from exposure to high temperature hydrogen plasma.

Abstract: In accordance with the invention a planar waveguide device is fabricated by providing a substrate with an undercladding, depositing a particulate layer of core glass on the undercladding, consolidating the particulate layer by low temperature viscous sintering, patterning the consolidated layer to form an optical waveguide and applying an overcladding. The glass layers can be deposited quickly and economically by slurry dipping, centrifuging or electrophoresis. In a preferred embodiment the substrate is silicon, and the core glass is sodium-boro-silicate.

Abstract: A speech coding system robust to frame erasure (or packet loss) is described. Illustrative embodiments are directed to a modified version of CCITT standard G.728. In the event of frame erasure, vectors of an excitation signal are synthesized based on previously stored excitation signal vectors generated during non-erased frames. This synthesis differs for voiced and non-voiced speech. During erased frames, linear prediction filter coefficients are synthesized as a weighted extrapolation of a set of linear prediction filter coefficients determined during non-erased frames. The weighting factor is a number less than 1. This weighting accomplishes a bandwidth-expansion of peaks in the frequency response of a linear predictive filter. Computational complexity during erased frames is reduced through the elimination of certain computations needed during non-erased frames only.

Abstract: A device for storing and handling at least one drill bit cassette includes a channel member having a height, two ends and a length extending between the two ends. At least one of the two ends is dimensioned to slidingly receive the at least one drill bit cassette. As a result, drill bit cassettes can be safely and efficiently removed, installed and stored.

Abstract: An on-the-fly verification system which employs statically-available information to reduce the size of the state space required to verify liveness and safety properties of a target system consisting of asynchronous communicating processes. The verification system generates a verifier from a description of the target system and a specification of the property to be verified. The verifier models the target system as a set of finite state machines, constructs a state space containing a graph of nodes representing states of the target system and transitions between the states, and uses the state space to verify the property. The size of the state space is reduced by using information from the description and the specification to divide transitions from a node into per-process bundles and to determine which bundles of transitions must be included in the state space and which may be left out of the state space.

Abstract: An system and apparatus records and displays information received from a premises such as ambient temperature or information received over a telephone network. A wireless transmitter generates and transmits a packet of telephone information received from the telephone network. The generated signals can be radio, infrared and ultrasonic. A packet receiver is spaced distant from the premises recording unit but within range of the packet transmission generated for receiving and storing the packet of telephone information. The packet receiver displays at least a portion of the packet of telephone information.

Abstract: A system for servicing call establishment requests in a cellular telephone system on a priority basis is described. In this system, a base station receives a call establishment request either via an external MTSO (mobile telephone switch office) or PSTN (public telephone switch network), or internally from a call establishment request, broadcasted by a mobile unit associated with a first subscriber within the cell of interest. Both the base station and the mobile unit are located in a cell (i.e., the cell of interest) of the cellular telephone system. The base station determines whether it has a free channel to service the call establishment request. If the base station does not have a free channel to service the call establishment request, then a call processor determines a service priority level of the first subscriber. This service priority level is communicated to the base station.

Abstract: A buck-boost power converter for powering a load from an AC power source having a full resonant circuit for applying an alternating voltage to the load. A choke is connected to the full resonant circuit and a switching device switches the choke in quasi-resonant manner to an input power rectifier to produce high power factor power conversion.

Abstract: Disclosed is a circuit and system for preventing tampering with services provided in a broadband transmission network. A coaxial relay is coupled between a cable providing signals in the network and the drop cable to the customer's premises. The coil which operates the relay is coupled to the shield conductor of the drop cable and to a source of dc potential. As long as a current flows through the shield portion and the coil, the customer is connected to the network through the relay. If current stops, as when the customer disconnects the drop cable, the customer is disconnected from the network.

Abstract: A tool (10) is provided for inserting a wire (12) into a wire-receiving slit (13) of an IDC (14) and for trimming the excess portion of the wire following insertion. The tool includes a prime mover (24) coupled to a guide member (36) having a wire-receiving notch (60) in one end, and a slot (64) coextensive with the notch. The guide member (36) has a blade (46) that is pivotally coupled to the guide member for movement across the wire-receiving notch (60). When the guide member (36) is positioned to partially envelop the IDC (14) in the slot (64), and the prime mover (24) is actuated, the guide member forces the wire (12) seated in the notch (62) into the slit (13) of the IDC. Simultaneously, the blade (46) pivots across the guide member (36) to sever any excess portion of the wire extending beyond the IDC (14).

Abstract: A flat panel display plate (10) comprising part of a liquid crystal display device is tested by overlying the plate with a probe plate (18) comprised of light-transmissive electrode (22) a light-transmissive electrode support (20), and a sensing layer (24). The probe plate in combination with the flat panel display plate (10) realize a conventional liquid crystal display device whose operation depends on the operability of the flat panel display plate. Thus, by observing the liquid crystal display device realized by the combination of the flat panel display plate (10) and the probing plate (18), defects in the flat panel display plate can be detected.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for performing vector quantization in a video coder. The method includes obtaining a video frame and segmenting it into coding blocks of predetermined size. A predetermined number of the coding blocks is transferred to a first cache memory. A predetermined portion of a codebook is transferred into a first section of a second cache memory which is capable of being rotated or having addresses associated with bytes in the second cache memory interchanged or offset by a specified amount. Concurrently with computing the vector quantization for the first portion of the codebook with respect to the coding blocks in the first cache memory, a second section of the codebook is transferred into a second section of the second cache memory. The number of coding blocks transferred to the first cache memory is selected so that transferral of the second section of the codebook is completed at the same time as or prior to completion of the computation of the vector quantization.

Abstract: A high reliability digit string recognizer/rejection system that processes spoken words through an HMM recognizer to determine a string of candidate digits, a filler model for each digit in the digit string, and other information. Next, a weighted sum is generated for each digit in the string and for a filler model for each digit in the string. A confidence score is generated for each digit by subtracting the filler weighted sum from the digit weighted sum. The confidence score for each digit is then compared to a threshold and, if the confidence score for any of the digits is less than the threshold, the entire digit string is rejected. If the confidence scores for all of the digits in the digit string are equal to or greater than the threshold, then the candidate digit string is accepted as a digit string.

Abstract: An apparatus and method for illuminating a message lamp on analog customer premises equipment (CPE) under the control of a digital switch. A message conversion circuit (MCC) which is positioned intermediate to the digital switch and the analog CPE controls an on-hook isolation and relay circuit to selectively connect the subscriber line associated with the analog CPE with a voltage supply to illuminate the message lamp.

Abstract: The specification describes a connector assembly for interconnecting lightwave waveguide arrays to lightwave fiber arrays. It uses passive alignment means in the form of grooves and pins. The grooves and pins are formed in a precise dimensional relationship with the light path in the two halves of the assembly so that when the pins are inserted into the v-grooves the lightguides align precisely.

Abstract: A hinge adapter mounts to a fiber optic splice tray, such as the Keptel LL-2400.RTM. splice tray, and provides a hinging capability to these splice trays. The hinge adapters have a U-shaped member mounted at each corner of the splice tray. The U-shaped member has a central portion having a pair of arms depending therefrom, with the distal ends of the arms having an aperture and the ends of the central portion having a protrusion. When stacking the splice trays, the apertures formed in the arms of one hinge adapter receive protrusions in the central portion of another hinge adapter. When the hinge adapters on one side of a desired splice tray are separated from the hinge adapters above that splice tray, an installer or lineman can pivot the upper splice trays away from the desired tray and readily gain access to the desired splice tray. The U-shaped members are mounted to a side of the splice tray by brackets which are inserted into an area of the splice trays.

Abstract: A method of compressing data used in integrated circuit (IC) layout verifications includes the steps of identifying each circuit component from each layer of the IC chip; sorting each circuit component in an established order; identifying predetermined parameters for each component; determining the difference in value of the parameters for each pair of components in successive order; and storing the difference values for each pair of components.

Abstract: A device for filtering wide-band signals at radio frequencies is usable either in a base station cellular telephony system or separately. The wide-band signal occupies a total frequency band comprising frequency bands allocated to that signal and a central frequency band extraneous to that wide-band signal. Within the device, the wide-band signal is mixed with a heterodyne wave to translate the signal from RF to IF. The signal at IF is then filtered by two surface acoustic wave (SAW) band-pass filters which have respective pass bands which correspond at IF to the allocated frequency bands of the wide-band signal, and which the SAW filters have the filtering effect of passing with low attenuation signals in those allocated bands while substantially attenuating signals and/or noise in the central extraneous frequency band between those allocated bands.

Abstract: A bipolar switching circuit converts an applied DC voltage to a low frequency AC voltage by periodically transmitting and inverting the applied DC voltage. The bipolar circuitry in one embodiment includes four switches which are switched in pairs to alternately provide a direct transmission of the input DC voltage and an inverted version of the DC input voltage.