Abstract: An aerosol generating device includes: a cartridge including a liquid storage and an atomizer; and a main body including a battery, a puff sensor, and a controller configured to perform pulse width modulation (PWM) control for supplying power from the battery to the atomizer, wherein the controller performs the PWM control at a first duty ratio during a puff period and performs the PWM control at a second duty ratio lower than the first duty ratio during a non-puff period between puff periods.

Abstract: A substrate processing apparatus using plasma capable of efficiently controlling the selectivity ratio of a silicon layer and an oxide layer is provided. The substrate processing apparatus comprises a first space disposed between an electrode and an ion blocker; a second space disposed between the ion blocker and a shower head; a processing space under the shower head for processing a substrate; a first supply hole for providing a first gas for generating plasma to the first space; a second supply hole for providing a second gas to be mixed with an effluent of the plasma to the second space; and a first coating layer formed on a first surface of the shower head facing the second space, not formed on a second surface of the shower head facing the processing space, and containing nickel.

Abstract: An aerosol generating device and a controlling method thereof are provided. An aerosol generating device includes: a battery configured to supply power for generating an aerosol from an aerosol generating material; a converter configured to convert a supply voltage from the battery into a constant voltage of a predetermined level; a heater configured to heat the aerosol generating material using the supply voltage; a detection circuit configured to detect a change in resistance of the heater by applying the constant voltage output from the converter and performing a current sensing on the heater with a resistance value; and a controller configured to control the heater for generating the aerosol by switching between a monitoring mode for performing the detection of the change in the resistance of the heater using the constant voltage and a heating mode for heating the heater using the supply voltage.

Abstract: A battery state estimating apparatus according to an embodiment of the present disclosure includes a measuring unit configured to measure a charging current, and voltage and temperature of a battery in a constant current charging process and a constant voltage charging process of the battery; and a control unit configured to judge whether an abnormal behavior occurs in the battery according to a behavior of at least one of the charging current, the voltage of the battery and the temperature of the battery in at least one of the constant current charging process and the constant voltage charging process, and determine whether lithium precipitation occurs in the battery based on the judged abnormal behavior of the battery.

Abstract: A gate driver for driving a half-bridge is disclosed, which includes a low voltage control logic, a high side switch control circuit and a low side switch control circuit. The low voltage control circuit generates an internal pulsed high side control signal based on a high side control signal and a common protection function blanking control signal and a low side protection function activation signal based on a low side control signal and the common protection function blanking control signal. The high side switch control circuit includes a high side protection function circuit, which is enabled based on a first pulse of the internal pulsed high side control signal and is activated based on a second pulse of the internal high side pulsed control signal. The low side switch control includes a low side protection function circuit, which is activated based on the protection function activation signal.

Abstract: A method of forming a semiconductor device comprises forming a mask pattern over an etch target layer, forming an ion implantation region in the mask pattern through an ion implantation process, and forming an ion non-implantation region within the mask pattern, removing the ion implantation region on a top surface of the ion non-implantation region, removing the ion non-implantation region, and patterning the etch target layer by using spacers that comprise the ion implantation region as an etch mask.

Abstract: A method of forming a semiconductor device comprises forming a mask pattern over an etch target layer, forming an ion implantation region in the mask pattern through an ion implantation process, and forming an ion non-implantation region within the mask pattern, removing the ion implantation region on a top surface of the ion non-implantation region, removing the ion non-implantation region, and patterning the etch target layer by using spacers that comprise the ion implantation region as an etch mask.

Abstract: An apparatus for encoding a digital video signal to reduce a transmission rate of the digital video signal, which comprises a feature point based motion compensation circuit for selecting a set of feature points from the reconstructed reference frame to detect a set of motion vectors between a current frame and a original reference frame corresponding to the set of feature points by using a feature point based motion estimation, and for generating a second predicted frame based on the set of motion vectors and the reconstructed reference frame. The feature point based motion estimation employs a convergence process in which a displacement of each of the feature points are given to a motion vector thereof and the six triangles of each of the hexagon are affine-transformed independently using the displacements of their vertex feature points. If the displacements provide a better PSNR, the motion vector of the subject feature point is sequentially updated.

Abstract: A method for determining feature points comprises a step for (a) providing directional gradients and a gradient magnitude for each pixel in the video frame, (b) normalizing the directional gradients by dividing the directional gradients with the gradient magnitude, (c) generating a first edge map having the gradient magnitude for each pixel, (d) generating a second edge map having the normalized direction gradients for each pixel, (e) dividing the first edge map into a plurality of blocks of an identical size, (f) providing, for each of the pixels included in each of the blocks, normalized directional gradients for a set of a predetermined number of pixels from the second edge map, (g) obtaining a variance for each of the pixels included in each of the blocks based on the provided normalized directional gradients, (h) determining a feature point for each of the blocks based on the gradient magnitude and variance corresponding to each of the pixels therein.

Abstract: An image processing system for processing a video signal includes an encoder and a decoder, wherein the encoder comprises a frame decimator for selecting a plurality of frames from the video signal, a unit for creating M number of candidate frames for each of the non-selected frames, i.e., skipped frames by using M number of skipped frame prediction factors, and a unit for comparing each of the N skipped frames with each of the candidate frames to transmit a skipped frame prediction factor for each of the N skipped frames to the decoder; and the decoder comprises a unit for deciding each of the N skipped frames between the previous frame and the reconstructed current frame by using the transmitted skipped frame prediction factor.

Abstract: A video signal encoding apparatus determines quasi-feature points on the current frame based on selected feature points on the previous frame. A predicted current frame is obtained based on a number of triangle regions formed by the quasi-feature points. After determining a frame difference signal by subtracting the predicted current frame signal from the current frame signal, a plurality of processing regions are selected from the frame difference signal based on the magnitude of average pixel difference values corresponding to the triangle regions. Only the selected processing regions are then encoded for transmission to thereby reduce a transmission rate. A video signal decoding apparatus comprises corresponding circuits for decoding the selectively encoded video signal.

Abstract: An inventive apparatus determines true motion vectors between a current and its previous frames for feature points selected from the previous frame wherein a selected feature point is surrounded by its neighboring four feature points to form a previous rhombus having a set of four triangles based on the selected feature point. A motion vector displacement generator gives a predetermined N number of displacements to an initial motion vector for its corresponding feature points to thereby produce a subset of N candidate motion vectors and a motion prediction block provides a current rhombus corresponding to the previous rhombus by the initial motion vectors, wherein the current rhombus has N sets of four triangles due to the N candidate motion vectors.