Abstract: The object is the present invention is to provide a semiconductor device including a circuit employing two or more field-effect transistor that are desired to have equal characteristics, capable of realizing high reliability and superior transistor characteristics. The transistors which are desired to have equal characteristics are placed in the semiconductor device so as to have the same STI trench width (the width of shallow trench isolation adjacent to an active in which the transistor is formed). By such composition, stress growing in the active due to the shallow trench isolation is equalized among the transistors and thereby the characteristics of the transistors can be equalized.

Abstract: A wireless communication receiver that is able to lessen the effect of noise that accompanies gain change by programmable gain amplifiers. The receiver includes an AGC controller which controls the timing at which the programmable gain amplifiers make gain change, using a terminal counter and a sequencer. The receiver prevents gain change noise signals during the reception of control signals and other signals that are susceptible to noise. By the timing control feature, the programmable gain amplifiers make gain change while reducing noise impact.

Abstract: A semiconductor integrated circuit device is provided in which (i) inspection pads are arranged along one side or two opposite sides of the semiconductor integrated circuit device for bonding pads arranged along the sides other than the side or the two opposite sides and (ii) the bonding pads are connected to their respective inspection pads by connection wires The inspection is carried out by applying probe needles to the pads (inspection pads and bonding pads) arranged only along one side or two opposite sides of the semiconductor integrated circuit device. The invention also provides a semiconductor integrated circuit package with leads on four sides includes a semiconductor integrated circuit device with bonding pads laid along one pair of opposite sides of the four sides, and a table for supporting the semiconductor integrated circuit device.

Abstract: Each of junctions formed between a semiconductor device and a substrate comprises metal balls of Cu, or other materials and compounds of Sn and the metal balls, and the metal balls are bonded together by the compounds.

Abstract: An automaton configured to perform a task comprises a communication interface to communicate positional information with one or more anchor points provided within a given environment. The positional information enables generation of mapping information of the given environment. A motor provides the automation with mobility. A memory stores the mapping information. A controller controls the motor to enable the automaton to perform the task in the given environment using a first task route that has been generated using the mapping information.

Abstract: A semiconductor chip production method including the steps of: forming a front side recess in a semiconductor substrate; depositing a metal material in the front side recess to form a front side electrode electrically connected to a functional device formed on the front surface; removing a rear surface portion of the semiconductor substrate to reduce the thickness of the semiconductor substrate to a thickness greater than the depth of the front side recess; forming a rear side recess communicating with the front side recess in the rear surface of the semiconductor substrate after the thickness reducing step; and depositing a metal material in the rear side recess to form a rear side electrode electrically connected to the front side electrode for formation of a through-electrode.

Abstract: A tunnel magnetic resistive element forming a magnetic memory cell includes a fixed magnetic layer having a fixed magnetic field of a fixed direction, a free magnetic layer magnetized by an applied magnetic field, and a tunnel barrier that is an insulator film provided between the fixed and free magnetic layers in a tunnel junction region. In the free magnetic layer, a region corresponding to an easy axis region having characteristics desirable as a memory cell is used as the tunnel junction region. A hard axis region having characteristics undesirable as a memory cell is not used as a portion of the tunnel magnetic resistive element.

Abstract: Normal memory cells are arranged in rows and columns, and dummy memory cells are arranged to form dummy memory cell rows by sharing memory celf columns with the normal memory cells. When there is at least one defect in the normal memory cells and/or the dummy memory cells, replacement/repair is carried out using a redundant column in a unit of memory cell column. The redundant column includes not only spare memory cells for repair of the normal memory cells but also spare dummy memory cells for repair of the dummy memory cells.

Abstract: A semiconductor integrated circuit device for fast and low power operations, comprising a plurality of circuit blocks of a chip, each of which has a plurality of states with different power consumption values. A power management circuit determines the state of each of the circuit blocks so as not to exceed a maximum power consumption value of the semiconductor integrated circuit device by considering the power consumption of each circuit block and by each state transition in each circuit block. The maximum power consumption value may be preset or adjustable after fabrication.

Abstract: A semiconductor device includes a semiconductor layer formed on an insulating layer; a gate electrode disposed on said semiconductor layer via a gate insulating film; a source/drain layer composed by including an alloy layer or a metal layer with a bottom surface in contact with the insulating layer, with joint surfaces to a channel region disposed along crystal orientation faces of said semiconductor layer; and impurity-doped layers formed in a self-aligned manner along interfaces of the alloy layer or the metal layer, and said semiconductor layer.

Abstract: An opening/closing of a plurality of valves are controlled so that a plurality of gases flow into a chamber in an operation of a semiconductor manufacturing apparatus, and the opening/closing of the plurality of valves are controlled so that a gas A flows into mass flowmeters in an inspection of a mass flow controller MFC 2?. Therefore, the inspection can be achieved while maintaining the connection of mass flow controller MFC 2? to the semiconductor manufacturing apparatus.

Abstract: A semiconductor device includes a gate electrode disposed on a semiconductor layer via a gate insulating film; a source layer formed in the semiconductor layer to be separated by a first offset length from one end of said gate electrode; a drain layer formed in the semiconductor layer to be separated by a second offset length from the other end of said gate electrode; a first side wall formed at a side wall of said gate electrode at a side of said source layer; and a second side wall formed at the side wall of said gate electrode at a side of said drain layer, wherein the first offset length is shorter than the second offset length, and a length of said first side wall is shorter than a length of said second side wall.

Abstract: The performance of a system is simulated in a method comprising: performing simulation in a first simulation mode for at least a first portion of code that models at least a portion of the system; and performing simulation in a second simulation mode for at least a second portion of code that models at least a portion of the system.

Abstract: As the chip manufacturing process progresses towards making smaller and finer chip circuitry, leakage currents of different types including the subthreshold leakage current, gate tunneling leakage current and GIDL (Gate-Induced Drain Leakage) current increase. These leakage currents increase the electrical current consumption of the chip. In a semiconductor integrated circuit device comprising a circuit block having a first MOS transistor, and a leakage current control circuit having a second MOS transistor and a current source, a source and drain circuit of the second MOS transistor is formed between the power supply line of the circuit block and a voltage point where operating voltage is supplied.

Abstract: Data handling dynamically responds to changing noise power conditions to separate valid data from noise. A reference power level acts as a threshold between dynamically assumed noise and valid data, and dynamically refers to the reference power level changing adaptively with the background noise. The introduction of dynamic noise control in VOX (Voice Activated Transmission) improves a VOX device operation in a noisy environment, even when the background noise profiles are changing. Processing is on a frame by frame basis for successive frames. The threshold is adaptively changed when a comparison of frame signal power to the threshold indicates speech or the absence of speech in the compared frame repeatedly and continuously for a period of time involving plural successive frames having no valid speech or noise above the threshold to correspondingly reduce or increase the threshold by changing the threshold to a value that is a function of the input signal power.

Abstract: A system and method are provided for using dynamic random access memory and flash memory. In one example, the memory system comprises a nonvolatile memory; synchronous dynamic random access memories; circuits including a control circuit which is coupled with the nonvolatile memory and the synchronous dynamic random access memories, and controls accesses to the nonvolatile memory and the synchronous dynamic random access memories; and a plurality of input/output terminals coupled with the circuits, wherein in data transfer from the nonvolatile memory to the synchronous dynamic random access memories, error corrected data is transferred.

Abstract: An object of the present invention is to present a transmission type liquid crystal display device capable of achieving at least one of reduction of size of device and enhancement of performance of operation and display. A liquid crystal panel is divided into four divided regions in vertical direction in plan view, and corresponding to these divided regions, four ray emission light sources composed of fluorescent lamps are disposed vertically at the left side of a light guide plate, and the light emitted from the ray emission light sources illuminates the divided regions by way of the light guide plate. By turning on and off switches, the ray emission light sources are independently controlled to be lit up or put out, and only in a specific time including the time of all pixels of divided regions settling at target transmissivity, one ray emission light source out of ray emission light sources responsible for a corresponding divided region is lit up (illuminated, light-emitted).

Abstract: In this invention, a control circuit (111) controls both the power supply voltage (VDDQ) and the transistor size of the external output buffer to thereby select the lowest supply voltage that achieves the impedance matching with the transmission line (100), to thereby save bus termination by a resistor, thus consequently achieving both the lowering of the power consumption and the speeding-up in the data transmission. The power consumption during the data transmission is proportional to the square of the supply voltage. If the operational supply voltage of the external output buffer is lowered, the power consumption will be reduced accordingly. If the operational supply voltage of the external output buffer is lowered, the impedance thereof will be increased apparently; and at the same time, if the transistor size of the external output buffer is increased, the increased impedance will be decreased.

Abstract: A semiconductor chip production method including the steps of: forming a front side recess in a semiconductor substrate; depositing a metal material in the front side recess to form a front side electrode electrically connected to a functional device formed on the front surface; removing a rear surface portion of the semiconductor substrate to reduce the thickness of the semiconductor substrate to a thickness greater than the depth of the front side recess; forming a rear side recess communicating with the front side recess in the rear surface of the semiconductor substrate after the thickness reducing step; and depositing a metal material in the rear side recess to form a rear side electrode electrically connected to the front side electrode for formation of a through-electrode.

Abstract: An RF IC in which a PLL circuit including a loop filter is incorporated into a semiconductor chip is achieved without increasing power consumption or chip size. The RF IC includes a VCO capable of switching oscillation frequency bands, a variable frequency divider, a phase comparator, and a loop filter, which are contained in the PLL loop. A discrimination circuit discriminates a lead or lag in a phase of an output signal from the variable frequency divider against a reference signal and an automatic band selecting circuit generates a signal for switching the frequency bands of the VCO based on output from the discrimination circuit. While switching the frequency bands of the VCO by means of bisection algorithm, the RF IC detects an optimum frequency band, and adds offset to it to determine a final usable frequency band.