Abstract: A battery module including a rechargeable battery, a charging circuit for the rechargeable battery; and a switch adapted to connect the rechargeable battery to the charging circuit, or to output terminals of the battery system. The switch is adapted to change its switching status by a voltage applied to input terminals of the charging circuit. By de-centralizing the control of the switches in multiple battery modules, adding or removing a battery module from the group of battery modules becomes easy.

Abstract: Disclosed are methods and substrates suitable for flip-chip assembly. Underfill processing used to produce the substrates provides for lead-free, eutectic solder, and other alloy reflow based flip-chip interconnects for 10-20 ?m peripheral and area array I/O pitch. The methods and substrates utilize underfill materials with tailored properties along with a variety of patterning techniques to produce openings in underfill material disposed on the substrates that are used as an alignment guide for flip-chip attachment to the substrates.

Abstract: An electrical condition monitoring method utilizes measurements of electrical resistivity of an age sensor (303) made of a conductive matrix or composite disposed in a polymeric structure such as an electrical cable (301). The conductive matrix comprises a base polymer and conductive filler. The method comprises a means for communicating the resistivity to a measuring instrument (317) as a means to correlate resistivity of the conductive matrix of the polymeric structure with resistivity of an accelerated-aged conductive composite.

Abstract: The present invention is suitable for use in a communications system that downloads applications over a broadcast file system (BFS). An application services interface (ASI) provides the BFS an application file including a configuration file and an image file that are stored in a service manager in set-tops. Additionally, the ASI provides the BFS a content file that is included in the application file. The provided content file is separated into service files, where each service file is associated with a particular service. When a set-top requests a service, the associated service file is subsequently loaded onto the set-top. Alternatively, a service file is stored in memory until such time as another service is requested, which at that point the older service file is removed from memory to allow space for the newly requested service file.