Abstract: Barrel adapters for safety syringes include a barrel and a plunger assembly adapted to move within the barrel, a barrel tip adapted to be sealingly engaged with a distal end of the barrel and a needle retraction mechanism having a needle subassembly and an actuator subassembly. The needle subassembly includes a needle, and a needle-over-mold (NOM) through which the needle extends. The needle subassembly is disposed at least partially within the barrel tip, and adapted to move from an injection position in which the needle extends from a distal end of the barrel tip to a retracted position in which the needle is disposed within at least one of the barrel tip or the barrel. The actuator subassembly includes a needle seal, a push-bar, and an actuator surface. The needle retraction mechanism includes a biasing member and an actuable locking arrangement. A syringe includes such barrel adapters.

Abstract: A method of fabrication of a sputtered metal silicide layer over a copper interconnect. We form a dielectric layer over a conductive layer. We form an interconnect opening in the dielectric layer. We form a copper layer at least filling the interconnect opening. We planarize the copper layer to form a copper interconnect in the interconnect opening. The copper interconnect is over polished to form a depression. We form metal silicide layer over the copper interconnect using a low temperature sputtering process. We can form a cap layer over the metal silicide layer.

Abstract: A growth material that grows selectively on the vertical sidewalls of a vertical device forms sidewall spacers on substantially vertical sidewalls of the vertical device that is disposed on a horizontal substrate surface of a semiconductor substrate. A spacer-like seed liner may be provided on the vertical sidewalls of the vertical device to control selective growth. The vertical device may be a gate electrode of a field effect transistor (FET). With selectively grown sidewall spacers, heavily doped contact regions of the FET may be precisely spaced apart from the gate electrode. The distance of the heavily doped contact regions to the gate electrode does not depend from the height of the gate electrode. Distances of more than 150 nm between the heavily doped contact region and the gate electrode may be achieved so as to facilitate the formation of, for example, DMOS devices.

Abstract: A DMA device prefetches descriptors into a descriptor prefetch buffer. The size of descriptor prefetch buffer holds an appropriate number of descriptors for a given latency environment. To support a linked list of descriptors, the DMA engine prefetches descriptors based on the assumption that they are sequential in memory and discards any descriptors that are found to violate this assumption. The DMA engine seeks to keep the descriptor prefetch buffer full by requesting multiple descriptors per transaction whenever possible. The bus engine fetches these descriptors from system memory and writes them to the prefetch buffer. The DMA engine may also use an aggressive prefetch where the bus engine requests the maximum number of descriptors that the buffer will support whenever there is any space in the descriptor prefetch buffer. The DMA device discards any remaining descriptors that cannot be stored.

Abstract: A direct memory access (DMA) device includes a barrier and interrupt mechanism that allows interrupt and mailbox operations to occur in such a way that ensures correct operation, but still allows for high performance out-of-order data moves to occur whenever possible. Certain descriptors are defined to be “barrier descriptors.” When the DMA device encounters a barrier descriptor, it ensures that all of the previous descriptors complete before the barrier descriptor completes. The DMA device further ensures that any interrupt generated by a barrier descriptor will not assert until the data move associated with the barrier descriptor completes. The DMA controller only permits interrupts to be generated by barrier descriptors. The barrier descriptor concept also allows software to embed mailbox completion messages into the scatter/gather linked list of descriptors.

Abstract: A direct memory access (DMA) device is structured as a loosely coupled DMA engine (DE) and a bus engine (BE). The DE breaks the programmed data block moves into separate transactions, interprets the scatter/gather descriptors, and arbitrates among channels. The DE and BE use a combined read-write (RW) command that can be queued between the DE and the BE. The bus engine (BE) has two read queues and a write queue. The first read queue is for “new reads” and the second read queue is for “old reads,” which are reads that have been retried on the bus at least once. The BE gives absolute priority to new reads, and still avoids deadlock situations.

Abstract: A DMA device prefetches descriptors into a descriptor prefetch buffer. The size of descriptor prefetch buffer holds an appropriate number of descriptors for a given latency environment. To support a linked list of descriptors, the DMA engine prefetches descriptors based on the assumption that they are sequential in memory and discards any descriptors that are found to violate this assumption. The DMA engine seeks to keep the descriptor prefetch buffer full by requesting multiple descriptors per transaction whenever possible. The bus engine fetches these descriptors from system memory and writes them to the prefetch buffer. The DMA engine may also use an aggressive prefetch where the bus engine requests the maximum number of descriptors that the buffer will support whenever there is any space in the descriptor prefetch buffer. The DMA device discards any remaining descriptors that cannot be stored.

Abstract: A direct memory access (DMA) device includes a barrier and interrupt mechanism that allows interrupt and mailbox operations to occur in such a way that ensures correct operation, but still allows for high performance out-of-order data moves to occur whenever possible. Certain descriptors are defined to be “barrier descriptors.” When the DMA device encounters a barrier descriptor, it ensures that all of the previous descriptors complete before the barrier descriptor completes. The DMA device further ensures that any interrupt generated by a barrier descriptor will not assert until the data move associated with the barrier descriptor completes. The DMA controller only permits interrupts to be generated by barrier descriptors. The barrier descriptor concept also allows software to embed mailbox completion messages into the scatter/gather linked list of descriptors.

Abstract: A direct memory access (DMA) device is structured as a loosely coupled DMA engine (DE) and a bus engine (BE). The DE breaks the programmed data block moves into separate transactions, interprets the scatter/gather descriptors, and arbitrates among channels. The DE and BE use a combined read-write (RW) command that can be queued between the DE and the BE. The bus engine (BE) has two read queues and a write queue. The first read queue is for “new reads” and the second read queue is for “old reads,” which are reads that have been retried on the bus at least once. The BE gives absolute priority to new reads, and still avoids deadlock situations.

Abstract: A growth material that grows selectively on the vertical sidewalls of a vertical device forms sidewall spacers on substantially vertical sidewalls of the vertical device that is disposed on a horizontal substrate surface of a semiconductor substrate. A spacer-like seed liner may be provided on the vertical sidewalls of the vertical device to control selective growth. The vertical device may be a gate electrode of a field effect transistor (FET). With selectively grown sidewall spacers, heavily doped contact regions of the FET may be precisely spaced apart from the gate electrode. The distance of the heavily doped contact regions to the gate electrode does not depend from the height of the gate electrode. Distances of more than 150 nm between the heavily doped contact region and the gate electrode may be achieved so as to facilitate the formation of, for example, DMOS devices.

Abstract: A method of fabrication of a sputtered metal silicide layer over a copper interconnect. We form a dielectric layer over a conductive layer. We form an interconnect opening in the dielectric layer. We form a copper layer at least filling the interconnect opening. We planarize the copper layer to form a copper interconnect in the interconnect opening. The copper interconnect is over polished to form a depression. We form metal silicide layer over the copper interconnect using a low temperature sputtering process. We can form a cap layer over the metal silicide layer.

Abstract: Two embodiments for an illumination system for a keyboard. One embodiment includes a channel located longitudinally between a visual display screen and its lower keyboard. An illuminator is mounted longitudinally in the channel so that light emitted is directed only to the keyboard and the work surface, avoiding illuminating the screen. The other embodiment includes a free standing keyboard illuminator including a housing sized to span a keyboard. The housing includes two contiguous, longitudinal sections with the first front section including a light source with a diverter to shed light only on the keyboard. The second back section includes a counterbalancing weight in relationship with the first section.