Abstract: A semiconductor device includes a substrate having a flash memory region and a logic device region, a logic transistor disposed in the logic device region, and a flash memory transistor disposed in the flash memory region. The flash memory transistor includes a metal select gate having two opposite sidewalls and two memory gates disposed on the two opposite sidewalls of the metal select gate.

Abstract: A method of preparing polylactic acid (PLA) microsphere and polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) microsphere is provided, including the following steps. A first solution is provided, including polylactic acid or polylactic-co-glycolic acid and an organic solvent. A second solution is provided, including polyvinyl alcohol, sodium carboxymethyl cellulose and an aqueous solution. The first solution is added to the second solution and, at the same time, the second solution is agitated until polylactic acid is solidified to form a plurality of polylactic acid microspheres, or until polylactic-co-glycolic acid is solidified to form a plurality of polylactic-co-glycolic acid microspheres. The polylactic acid microspheres or polylactic-co-glycolic acid microspheres are collected.

Abstract: A cached memory system that can handle high-rate input data and ensure that an embedded DSP can meet real-time constraints is described. The cached memory system includes a cache memory located close to a processor core, an on-chip memory at the next higher memory level, and an external main memory at the topmost memory level. A cache controller handles paging of instructions and data between the cache memory and the on-chip memory for cache misses. A direct memory exchange (DME) controller handles user-controlled paging between the on-chip memory and the external memory. A user/programmer can arrange to have the instructions and data required by the processor core to be present in the on-chip memory well in advance of when they are actually needed by the processor core.

Abstract: DSP architectures having improved performance are described. In an exemplary architecture, a DSP includes two MAC units and two ALUs, where one of the ALUs replaces an adder for one of the two MAC units. This DSP may be configured to operate in a dual-MAC/single-ALU configuration, a single-MAC/dual-ALU configuration, or a dual-MAC/dual-ALU configuration. This flexibility allows the DSP to handle various types of signal processing operations and improves utilization of the available hardware. The DSP architectures further includes pipeline registers that break up critical paths and allow operations at a higher clock speed for greater throughput.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for performing a semiconductor process wafer drying process, the method provides a semiconductor wafer having a process surface disposed in an enclosed drying space following exposure of the process surface to water; supplying a solvent vapor to the drying space at a predetermined concentration from a solvent vapor source and at least one solvent vapor supply line; determining at least one of a solvent vapor concentration and a solvent vapor temperature in the drying space; and heating in response to the determined solvent concentration at least one of at least a portion of one of the solvent vapor source, the at least one solvent vapor supply line, and at the drying space to alter the solvent vapor concentration in the drying space.