Abstract: A plasma treatment apparatus of the present invention comprises: a plasma generation chamber 34 for activating gas supplied thereto so as to generate plasma; a depressurization chamber 50 which is connected to the plasma generation chamber 34 and which accommodates a member 52 to be plasma-treated; and a diffuser 58 which is provided at a joint part of the plasma generation chamber 34 and the depressurization chamber 50, which guides the plasma in a direction inclined to a gas flow path of the plasma generation chamber 34, and which introduces the plasma into the depressurization chamber 50 while diffusing the plasma in the depressurization chamber 50.

Abstract: A thin film magnetic head includes an upper magnetic pole maintaining a constant thickness in a range determined by the so-called gap depth. A thinner film portion is defined in the upper magnetic pole in a range rearward of the range determined by the gap depth. The thinner film portion has a reduced thickness smaller than the constant thickness. The upper magnetic pole starts to enlarge the core width in the lateral direction at the rear end of the region determined by the so-called neck height. The neck height smaller than the gap depth serves to establish a reduction in the thickness of the upper magnetic pole after the upper magnetic pole gets larger in the lateral direction. A magnetic saturation can reliably be prevented at the thinner film portion in the upper magnetic pole. The front end of the upper magnetic pole is allowed to receive a larger quantity of a magnetic flux. It is possible to reliably enhance a magnetic field for recordation in the thin film magnetic head.

Abstract: In an inspection apparatus (1) for inspecting a pattern on a semiconductor substrate (9) which is processed by CMP, an optical head part (11) for acquiring a two-dimensional image of the pattern of the substrate (9) and a computer (13) for performing a computation are provided. In the computer (13), a reference image and an edge image of the reference image are prepared in advance and a differential image is obtained after performing a pattern matching between the acquired two-dimensional image and the reference image. In the differential image, an average value of absolute values of pixels is compared with a predetermined threshold value while an edge area indicated by the edge image is omitted, to detect whether there is a metal remaining film or not.

Abstract: White light is irradiated onto the surface of a printed circuit board from an oblique direction to capture a color information image MG0. Infrared light is also irradiated from a substantially perpendicular direction to capture an infrared light image IRM. Region segmentation is performed based on the color information image MG0 produces an image MG3 representing an integrated color region which includes a gold region GL and a brown region BR. Using this image MG3 and the infrared light image IRM, the gold region GL can be distinguished from the brown region BR. In another embodiment, a plurality of images relating to a plurality of wavelength bands of light are respectively captured for an inspection region. Then, an image characteristic value is calculated for the plurality of images, and a wavelength band R7 which is appropriate for an inspection is selected on the basis of this image characteristic value.

Abstract: A two-dimensional image of a substrate surface targeted for polishing is periodically picked up, and the image is analyzed to obtain an entropy H1, H2 of the two-dimensional image. An end point of polishing is then determined according to the entropy H1, H2. Alternatively, other image characteristic value such as a difference statistic of the image may be employed instead of the entropy H1, H2.

Abstract: A thin film magnetic head includes an upper magnetic pole maintaining a constant thickness in a range determined by the so-called gap depth. A thinner film portion is defined in the upper magnetic pole in a range rearward of the range determined by the gap depth. The thinner film portion has a reduced thickness smaller than the constant thickness. The upper magnetic pole starts to enlarge the core width in the lateral direction at the rear end of the region determined by the so-called neck height. The neck height smaller than the gap depth serves to establish a reduction in the thickness of the upper magnetic pole after the upper magnetic pole gets larger in the lateral direction. A magnetic saturation can reliably be prevented at the thinner film portion in the upper magnetic pole. The front end of the upper magnetic pole is allowed to receive a larger quantity of a magnetic flux. It is possible to reliably enhance a magnetic field for recordation in the thin film magnetic head.

Abstract: All possible image levels of image data are input to tone conversion characteristics, and a tone jump included in the image after tone conversion is detected from the resultant output data. An A-type contour line and a B-type contour line constituting the contours of a target area for tone interpolation are obtained from the multi-tone image. The target area is then detected by checking the inclusive relationship between the A-type and B-type contour lines to extract at least one set of contour lines indicating the contour of the target area. In the target area, an area defined by the A-type contour line and the B-type contour line is divided into (N+1) divided areas, and N intermediate image levels are sequentially allocated to the N divided areas of the (N+1) divided areas.

Abstract: At least part of an image boundary is specified as a target boundary portion to be processed and is then subjected to fractal processing. This procedure gives a corrected image boundary. When one cycle of the fractal processing magnifies the target boundary portion by M times, the target boundary portion is contracted to 1/M.sup.N (wherein N is an integer of not less than 1) prior to the fractal processing. The fractal processing is recursively executed by N times on the contracted target boundary portion.

Abstract: At step 1 in the flowchart of FIG. 1, multi-valued image data representing an image are read. After the image data are sliced at luminance values of 0 through 255 at step 2, boundary contours are extracted from the image data at step 3. Each boundary contour is converted to an inclined vector contour through an inclined vector process, which is executed according to predetermined conditions at step 4. The inclined vector contour undergoes a desired transformation of coordinates at step 5 before an orthogonal process, which is executed at step 6 to re-convert the inclined vector contours having transformed coordinates to outer and inner boundary contours. At step 7, the CPU (110) fills between the outer boundary contour and the inner boundary contour to generate image data of a closed figure, and combines a plurality of image data in the order of luminance values to generate multi-valued image data. A resulting image is then recorded at step 8 based on the multi-valued image data.

Abstract: There is provided a model where the illuminance of reflected light from the print is expressed with a linear combination of the illuminance of specular reflection light and that of internal reflection light. On the basis of the model, three methods are applicable to compute the colors of a print disposed in the three-dimensional space. In the first method, a specular reflection coefficient and an internal reflection coefficient, which are depending upon the wavelength, are interpolated by an angle of reflection .theta. and an angle of deviation .rho., and the illuminance spectrum of the reflected light is subsequently determined (step S2). Tristimulus values X, Y, and Z are then determined by integration of the illuminance spectrum according to the color matching functions (step S3). In the second method, the tristimulus values are determined for the specular reflection light, the internal reflection light, and the environmental light, respectively, and then interpolated by the reflection angle .theta.