Abstract: A device includes a semiconductor region of a first conductivity type, a trench extending into the semiconductor region, and a conductive field plate in the trench. A first dielectric layer separates a bottom and sidewalls of the field plate from the semiconductor region. A main gate is disposed in the trench and overlapping the field plate. A second dielectric layer is disposed between and separating the main gate and the field plate from each other. A Doped Drain (DD) region of the first conductivity type is under the second dielectric layer, wherein an edge portion of the main gate overlaps the DD region. A body region includes a first portion at a same level as a portion of the main gate, and a second portion at a same level as, and contacting, the DD region, wherein the body region is of a second conductivity type opposite the first conductivity type.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide various examples of a real-time face-detection, face-tracking, and face-pose-selection subsystem within an embedded video system. In one aspect, a process for performing real-time face-pose-estimation and best-pose selection for a detected person captured in a video is disclosed. This process includes the steps of: receiving a video image among a sequence of video frames of a video; performing a face detection operation on the video image to detect a set of faces in the video image; detecting a new person appears in the video based on the set of detected faces; tracking the new person through subsequent video images in the video by detecting a sequence of face images of the new person in the subsequent video images; and for each of the subsequent video images which contains a detected face of the new person being tracked: estimating a pose associated with the detected face and updating a best pose for the new person based on the estimated pose.

Abstract: A point of sale system has a display for receiving touch inputs, a controller to receive the touch inputs from the display, and a secure controller to receive touch input data from the controller. The system also has a card interface module and a contactless interface module to provide encrypted data to the secure controller. The secure controller can operate in either a secure mode or a non-secure mode. When a non-secure mode is engaged, the secure controller provides the touch input data to a processor. When a secure mode is engaged, the secure controller blocks at least a portion of the touch input data from the processor.

Abstract: A method and a system for dialogue enhancement of an audio signal, comprising receiving (step S1) the audio signal and a text content associated with dialogue occurring in the audio signal, generating (step S2) parameterized synthesized speech from the text content, and applying (step S3) dialogue enhancement to the audio signal based on the parameterized synthesized speech. With the invention text captions, subtitles, or other forms of text content included in an audio stream, can be used to significantly improve dialogue enhancement on the playback side.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide various examples of a joint face-detection and head-pose-angle-estimation system based on using a small-scale hardware CNN module such as the built-in CNN module in HiSilicon Hi3519 system-on-chip. In some embodiments, the disclosed joint face-detection and head-pose-angle-estimation system is configured to jointly perform multiple tasks of detecting most or all faces in a sequence of video frames, generating pose-angle estimations for the detected faces, tracking detected faces of a same person across the sequence of video frames, and generating “best-pose” estimation for the person being tracked. The disclosed joint face-detection and pose-angle-estimation system can be implemented on resource-limited embedded systems such as smart camera systems that are only integrated with one or more small-scale CNN modules.

Abstract: An LDMOS transistor with a dummy gate comprises an extended drift region over a substrate, a drain region in the extended drift region, a channel region in the extended drift region, a source region in the channel region, a first dielectric layer with a first thickness formed over the extended drift region, a second dielectric layer with a second thickness formed over the extended drift region and the channel region, wherein the first thickness is greater than the second thickness, and wherein the first dielectric layer and the second dielectric layer form two steps, a first gate formed over the first dielectric layer and a second gate formed above the second dielectric layer.

Abstract: Processor system with a general purpose processor and a cryptographic processor dedicated to performing cryptographic operations and enforcing the security of critical security parameters. The cryptographic processor prevents exposure of critical security parameters outside the cryptographic processor itself, and instead implements a limited scripting engine, which can be used by the general purpose processor to execute operations that require the critical security parameters.

Abstract: Methods and devices for nasopharyngeal carcinoma screening are disclosed. The method comprises providing a nasopharyngeal sample from a subject, isolating DNA from the sample, amplifying and detecting at least one EBV target sequence from the DNA using real-time PCR, wherein a real-time PCR cycle threshold number of less than or equal to 31.5 is indicative of the subject having nasopharyngeal carcinoma or a risk of developing nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The device for obtaining a brush biopsy sample comprises a longitudinal shaft having a first end and a second end, wherein at least two brush heads extend from the second end of the shaft.

Abstract: An expedited booting process with brownout detection for a payment reader is provided. The payment reader can execute a boot sequence from read only memory at startup. A check is made of a stored flag value to determine whether a value such as a flag indicates whether or not a prior execution of the boot sequence was successful. If the last execution of the boot sequence was successful, the boot sequence can be executed at a faster clock rate. Otherwise the boot sequence is executed at a slower clock rate. An evaluation can be made to determine whether a predetermined portion of the boot sequence has been surpassed. If the predetermined portion of the boot sequence has been surpassed, the flag value can be set to indicate a successful execution of the boot sequence and the general operating instructions for the payment reader are then executed.

Abstract: A device includes a vertical transistor comprising a first gate in a first trench, wherein the first gate comprises a dielectric layer and a gate region over the dielectric layer, and a second gate in a second trench, a high voltage lateral transistor immediately adjacent to the vertical transistor and a low voltage lateral transistor, wherein the high voltage lateral transistor is between the vertical transistor and the low voltage lateral transistor.

Abstract: An apparatus supports smart assistant services with a plurality of smart service providers. The apparatus includes an audio device that receives a speech signal having a user utterance, captures the user utterance when the user utterance includes a user wake word, and sends the captured utterance to a backend computing device. The backend computing device replaces the user wake word with specific wake words associated with different smart service providers. The processed utterances are then sent to selected smart service providers. The backend computing device subsequently constructs feedback to the user utterance based on voice responses from the different smart service providers. The backend computing device then passes a digital representation of the feedback to the audio device, and the audio device converts the digital representation to an audio reply to the user utterance.

Abstract: Embodiments of a convolutional neural network (CNN) system based on using resolution-limited small-scale CNN modules are disclosed. In some embodiments, a CNN system includes: a receiving module for receiving an input image of a first image size, the receiving module can be used to partition the input image into a set of subimages of a second image size; a first processing stage that includes a first hardware CNN module configured with a maximum input image size, the first hardware CNN module is configured to sequentially receive the set of subimages and sequentially process the received subimages to generate a set of outputs; a merging module for merging the sets of outputs into a set of merged feature maps; and a second processing stage for receiving the set of feature maps and processing the set of feature maps to generate an output including at least one prediction on the input image.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide various examples of a face-image training data preparation system for performing large-scale face-image training data acquisition, pre-processing, cleaning, balancing, and post-processing. The disclosed training data preparation system can collect a very large set of loosely-labeled images of different people from the public domain, and then generate a raw training dataset including a set of incorrectly-labeled face images. The disclosed training data preparation system can then perform cleaning and balancing operations on the raw training dataset to generate a high-quality face-image training dataset free of the incorrectly-labeled face images. The processed high-quality face-image training dataset can be subsequently used to train deep-neural-network-based face recognition systems to achieve high performance in various face recognition applications.

Abstract: A device includes a vertical transistor and a lateral transistor on a substrate, wherein the vertical transistor comprises a first gate in a first trench, a second gate in a second trench, a source and a drain, wherein the source and the drain are on opposite sides of the first trench and the lateral transistor and the drain are on opposite sides of the second trench.

Abstract: Building blocks for a smart device such as a thermostat include a user interface (UI) unit and a terminal (TML) unit. A UI unit may support one or more input data from a user and/or sensors and/or one or more control terminals. The UI unit may process each input datum or a combination of the input data, generate a control signal to one or more control terminals based on the processing, and send the control signal to one or more control terminals over a communication channel. A terminal unit, which may consist of one or more control terminals, transforms the received control signal into one or more controls to one or more associated environmental generators. One or more UI units may control one or more controlled apparatuses in conjunction with a mobile app to allow a unified user experience.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide various examples of a real-time face-detection, face-tracking, and face-pose-selection subsystem within an embedded vision system. In one aspect, a process for identifying near-duplicate-face images using this subsystem is disclosed. This process includes the steps of: receiving a determined best-pose-face image associated with a tracked face when the tracked face is determined to be lost; extracting an image feature from the best-pose-face image; computing a set of similarity values between the extracted image feature and each of a set of stored image features in a feature buffer, wherein the set of stored image features are extracted from a set of previously transmitted best-pose-face images; determining if any of the computed similarity values is above a predetermined threshold; and if no computed similarity value is above the predetermined threshold, transmitting the best-pose-face image to a server and storing the extracted image feature into the feature buffer.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide various examples of a real-time face-detection, face-tracking, and face-pose-selection subsystem within an embedded video system. In one aspect, a process for performing real-time face-pose-estimation and best-pose selection for a detected person captured in a video is disclosed. This process includes the steps of: receiving a video image among a sequence of video frames of a video; performing a face detection operation on the video image to detect a set of faces in the video image; detecting a new person appears in the video based on the set of detected faces; tracking the new person through subsequent video images in the video by detecting a sequence of face images of the new person in the subsequent video images; and for each of the subsequent video images which contains a detected face of the new person being tracked: estimating a pose associated with the detected face and updating a best pose for the new person based on the estimated pose.

Abstract: Embodiments described herein provide various examples of a face detection system, based on using a small-scale hardware convolutional neural network (CNN) module configured into a multi-task cascaded CNN. In some embodiments, a subimage-based CNN system can be configured to be equivalent to a large-scale CNN that processes the entire input image without partitioning such that the output of the subimage-based CNN system can be exactly identical to the output of the large-scale CNN. Based on this observation, some embodiments of this patent disclosure make use of the subimage-based CNN system and technique on one or more stages of a cascaded CNN or a multitask cascaded CNN (MTCNN) so that a larger input image to a given stage of the cascaded CNN or the MTCNN can be partitioned into a set of subimages of a smaller size. As a result, each stage of the cascaded CNN or the MTCNN can use the same small-scale hardware CNN module that is associated with a maximum input image size constraint.

Abstract: A method includes forming a first semiconductor layer over a substrate, forming a second semiconductor layer over the first semiconductor layer, forming a first trench and a second trench through in the first semiconductor layer and the second semiconductor layer, wherein a width of the second trench is different from a width of the first trench, forming a dielectric region in the first trench and forming a first gate region in the first trench and over the dielectric region, and a second gate region in the second trench.

Abstract: The present invention relates to an easy unloading high pressure coffee brewing machine with foam creation function, comprises an installation stand for connection to the environment, a brewing bucket, an unloading mechanism, a pressurizing mechanism and a foam creation mechanism, the brewing bucket has a double open-ended structure; the unloading mechanism is disposed at the bottom opening of the brewing bucket, the unloading mechanism comprises an unloading plate, a funnel; the pressurizing mechanism is disposed at the top opening of the brewing bucket, the pressurizing mechanism comprises a platen, a pressurizing cover; the foam creation mechanism comprises a sleeve opened at two ends, a filter basket sleeved onto the top of the inside of the sleeve, a foamer mesh cover sleeved to a bottom of the inside of the sleeve, an air pump; the structure is reasonable, having advantages of simple, convenient, has multiple functions, unloading is convenient, and good brewing performance, effectively solving the probl