Abstract: A pre-cleaning technique described herein may be used to remove native oxides and/or other contaminants from a semiconductor device in a manner in which the likelihood of chopping, clipping, and/or sidewall spacer thickness reduction is reduced. As described herein, a protection layer is formed on a capping layer over a gate structure of a transistor. A pre-cleaning operation is then performed to remove native oxides from the top surface of a source/drain region of the transistor. In the pre-cleaning operation, the protection layer is consumed instead of the material of the capping layer. In this way, the use of the protection layer reduces the likelihood of removal of material from the capping layer and/or reduces the amount of material that is removed from the capping layer during the pre-cleaning operation.

Abstract: A pre-cleaning technique described herein may be used to remove native oxides and/or other contaminants from a semiconductor device in a manner in which the likelihood of chopping, clipping, and/or sidewall spacer thickness reduction is reduced. As described herein, a protection layer is formed on a capping layer over a gate structure of a transistor. A pre-cleaning operation is then performed to remove native oxides from the top surface of a source/drain region of the transistor. In the pre-cleaning operation, the protection layer is consumed instead of the material of the capping layer. In this way, the use of the protection layer reduces the likelihood of removal of material from the capping layer and/or reduces the amount of material that is removed from the capping layer during the pre-cleaning operation.

Abstract: A pre-cleaning technique described herein may be used to remove native oxides and/or other contaminants from a semiconductor device in a manner in which the likelihood of chopping, clipping, and/or sidewall spacer thickness reduction is reduced. As described herein, a protection layer is formed on a capping layer over a gate structure of a transistor. A pre-cleaning operation is then performed to remove native oxides from the top surface of a source/drain region of the transistor. In the pre-cleaning operation, the protection layer is consumed instead of the material of the capping layer. In this way, the use of the protection layer reduces the likelihood of removal of material from the capping layer and/or reduces the amount of material that is removed from the capping layer during the pre-cleaning operation.

Abstract: A hand-held audio mixing device includes an I/O interface, an AD/DA converter, a dual-direction codec which sample rate is set in 8-48 KHz with a 16-bit resolution, an MCU, a memory, and an operational amplifier. The device executes a first process that the I/O interface receives a first source of analog audio signals, and the amplifier amplifies the received signals thereby playing the amplified signals to a user. The device executes a second process that the I/O interface receives a second source of analog audio signals, the converter mixes the received second source of signals with the amplified first source of signals into an analog mixture, the converter converts the analog mixture into digital mixture signals, the codec compresses the digital mixture signals, and the memory saves the compressed signals. The first and second processes are executed substantially simultaneously such that there is no latency delay perceivable by the user.