Innovative wire bonding method using a chemically reacted thin layer for chips with copper interconnects

This paper presents a novel method in which an oxide film is used to facilitate the thermosonic wire bonding of gold wire onto copper pads. A cuprous oxide film is generated by controlling the pH values of the chemical solution. Compared to cupric oxide films, the cuprous oxide film is denser and more brittle and therefore facilitates the bonding process without the need for the elaborate procedures and equipment required by more conventional wire bonding methods.     

A quantitative laser sheet image processing method for the study of the coherent structure of a circular jet flow

A quantitative two-dimensional digital image processing technique is successfully developed to enhance qualitative flow visualization and to obtain quantitative results. The technique is applied to study some less known properties of the coherent structural interaction and evolution mechanism of a low Reynolds number circular jet flow under high level acoustic excitation. Before processing the quantitative data, many inherent errors and uncertainties of the instruments and the system are first discussed and corrected. In this research, the uniformity and the traceability of the flow marker are carefully tested, and the distortion of the imaging system and the fan-shape of the laser sheet are calibrated. Through the image processing technique, the spreading of the jet, the trajectory and the convective velocity of the vortex can be analyzed rapidly and simultaneously. By analyzing the constant jet fluid concentration contour, the mechanism of vortex roll-up and entrainment, which has been ambiguous by traditional pointwise measurements, are more solidly confirmed. Also, the detailed tearing process of the vortex and the evolution mechanism of partial pairing, which can not be clearly detected in the conventional flow visualization pictures, are made clearly visible and carefully delineated.A version of this paper was presented at the 11th Symp. on Turbulence, University of Missouri-Rolla, 17–19 Oct. 1988     

Use of high‐conductivity sample solution with sweeping‐micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography for trace‐level quantification of paliperidone in human plasma

Paliperidone is a new antipsychotic drug with a relatively low therapeutic concentration of 20–60 ng/mL. We established an accurate and sensitive CE method for the determination of paliperidone concentrations in human plasma in this study. To minimize matrix effect caused by quantification errors, paliperidone was extracted from human plasma using Oasis HLB SPE cartridges with three‐step washing procedure. To achieve sensitive quantification of paliperidone in human plasma, a high‐conductivity sample solution with sweeping‐MEKC method was applied for analysis. The separation is performed in a BGE composed of 75 mM phosphoric acid, 100 mM SDS, 12% acetonitrile, and 15% tetrahydrofuran. Sample solution consisted of 10% methanol in 250 mM phosphoric acid and the conductivity ratio between sample matrix and BGE was 2.0 (γ, sample/BGE). The results showed it able to detect paliperidone in plasma samples at concentration as low as 10 ng/mL (S/N = 3) with a linear range between 20 and 200 ng/mL. Compared to the conventional MEKC method, the sensitivity enhancement factor of the developed sweeping‐MEKC method was 100. Intra‐ and interday precision of peak area ratios were less than 6.03%; the method accuracy was between 93.4 and 97.9%. This method was successfully applied to the analysis of plasma samples of patients undergoing paliperidone treatment.     

Lock-on characteristics of a cavity shear layer

This investigation focuses on defining the lock-on regions of a cavity shear layer subject to local periodic excitations. A circular cylinder of small diameter (d=4 mm), located very close to the upstream edge of cavity, is used to generate the local periodic excitations in the form of oscillatory rotation about its center with various angular amplitudes (Δθ) and frequencies (f_e). All the experiments were conducted in a recirculating water channel at three different Reynolds numbers that are based on the momentum thickness at the upstream edge of cavity (Re_θ0=152, 216 and 278). The LDV system and the laser-sheet technique are employed to perform the quantitative velocity measurements and the qualitative flow visualization, respectively. For cavity flows at three Reynolds numbers studied, the resonant lock-on is found to be the primary lock-on region within the range of frequency ratio (f_e/f₀=0.28–2.0). Here f₀ denotes the natural instability frequency of an unexcited cavity shear layer. The frequency bandwidth of resonant lock-on region does increase with increasing excitation amplitudes (Δθ). While the excitation amplitudes are smaller than 5° (Δθ5°), the resonant lock-on region, at Reynolds numbers 216 and 278, distributes asymmetrically about f_e/f₀=1.0 and biases to the high frequency (or large f_e/f₀) side. However, the sidewise expansion of resonant lock-on region is enlarged and the degree of asymmetric distribution is alleviated at large excitation amplitudes (Δθ>5°). The amount of sidewise expansion of the resonant lock-on region biased toward the high-frequency side is more significant at the lowest Reynolds number (152) than those at two higher Reynolds numbers (216 and 278). Besides, there exists a sub-harmonic lock-on region only at the lowest Reynolds number 152. The existence of a sub-harmonic lock-on region clearly reveals that the differential equation governing the self-excited oscillation within a cavity contains the quadratic nonlinear term. Further, at the lowest Reynolds number (152), the sidewise expansion of the sub-harmonic lock-on region is much narrower than that of the resonant lock-on region.     

A linear dynamic model for a saturated porous medium

A linear isothermal dynamic model for a porous medium saturated by a Newtonian fluid is developed in the paper. In contrast to the mixture theory, the assumption of phase separation is avoided by introducing a single constitutive energy function for the porous medium. An important advantage of the proposed model is it can account for the couplings between the solid skeleton and the pore fluid. The mass and momentum balance equations are obtained according to the generalized mixture theory. Constitutive relations for the stress, the pore pressure are derived from the total free energy accounting for inter-phase interaction. In order to describe the momentum interaction between the fluid and the solid, a frequency independent Biot-type drag force model is introduced. A temporal variable porosity model with relaxation accounting for additional attenuation is introduced for the first time. The details of parameter estimation are discussed in the paper. It is demonstrated that all the material parameters in our model can be estimated from directly measurable phenomenological parameters. In terms of the equations of motion in the frequency domain, the wave velocities and the attenuations for the two P waves and one S wave are calculated. The influences of the porosity relaxation coefficient on the velocities and attenuation coefficients of the three waves of the porous medium are discussed in a numerical example.     

The stabilization mechanism of the lifted jet diffusion flame in the hysteresis region

Recent experimental efforts focused on near-field coherent vortex dynamics, and their impact on stabilization of a lifted jet diffusion flame in the hysteresis region are reported. Simultaneous jet flow and flame visualizations are conducted first to obtain a global feature of flow/flame interaction. The statistical liftoff heights are calculated by a DIP (digital image processing) method. The gas concentration and velocity distributions induced by the vortex evolution as well as the corresponding flame front motion are deduced from phase-averaged measurements of planar Mie-scattering gas concentration images, LDV and ion-signals, respectively. The planar gas concentration technique employed here extends our previous work (Chao et al. 1990, 1991 a) to include phase-averaging. Results of the experiments show that the most probable flame base locations in the hysteresis region are at the coherent vortex roll-up and pairing locations. The deeply entrained air lump caused by large-scale vortices during roll-up and pairing is the main obstruction to flame propagation back to the nozzle exit and causes the hysteresis phenomenon.     

Stability of oscillatory solutions of differential equations with general piecewise constant arguments of mixed type

We examine scalar differential equations with general piecewise constant arguments of mixed type, in short DEPCAG of mixed type, that is, the arguments are general step functions. Criteria of existence of the oscillatory and nonoscillatory solutions of such equations are proposed. Necessary and sufficient conditions for stability of the zero solution are obtained. Our results are new, extend and improve earlier publications. Several numerical examples and simulations are also given to show the feasibility of our results.     

Organic sol-gel materials for second-order nonlinear optics based on melamines

A series of all organic nonlinear optical (NLO) sol-gel materials based on melamines and an azobenzene dye (Disperse Orange 3; DO3) have been investigated. Different contents of DO3 were covalently bonded with the melamine-based organic network via condensation of amino and methylol groups. The optically clear samples exhibited second-order optical nonlinearity (second-harmonic coefficient d₃₃) = 35.4 and 11.5 pm/V at 1064 and 1542 nm, respectively) after poling and curing at 220°C for 1 h. Thermal behavior of these organic NLO sol-gel systems was studied by temperature-dependent dielectric relaxation. The results indicate that the incorporation of rigid NLO-active chromophore into the melamine-based matrix leads to high rigidity and dense packing of the organic network. Subsequently, higher glass transition temperatures were obtained for the organic NLO sol-gel material with higher DO3 content. The influence of composition on the temporal stability at 100°C was also investigated. Temporal stability at 100°C was studied as a function of system composition. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 37: 2503–2510, 1999