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The distribution of the acid concentration in the chemically amplified resist (CAR) plays an important role in the formation of the final resist profile. During post exposure bake (PEB) process, acid will diffuse and be neutralized in the resist to influence the acid concentration distribution and the process can be described as a reaction-diffusion system in a set of partial differential equations (PDEs). We use Chebyshev spectral method to solve those equations and it turns out to be very fast along with certain accuracy. Our simulation results indicate that Chebyshev spectral method is quite computationally efficient in dealing with PDEs during PEB process in some cases.

Minimodules with half-cell variants of multi-Si Al-BSF, mono-Si bifacial PERC, and multi-Si bifacial PERC, with backside encapsulant variations of UV cutoff and white EVA and POE are exposed, stepwise, to modified damp heat (80°C/85%RH) conditions. The modified damp heat is run at 80C/85 % relative humidity to maintain a temperature below the glass transition temperature of PET, maintaining conditions that are more similar to outdoor operation. I-V and EL results show corrosion is the predominant form of degradation, being most severe in the white EVA modules. Al-BSF cells in particular show large degree of power loss compared to the PERC cell counterparts when used in combination with white EVA encapsulant. There were no statistically significant differences in loss between multi- and mono-Si bifacial PERC cells. Correlating EL and I-V features suggests corrosion is not initiated at the busbars, instead reaching the busbars after significant corrosion has already occurred. Post exposure analysis confirm resistive losses through corrosion are the predominant loss mechanism from the exposure.

A retrospective big data analysis of data from a longitudinal study of older drivers is reported for multiyear (up to 7 years) driving data from an in-vehicle sensor system capturing engine computer and GPS data to measure and understand the behaviors of older driver with differing health related to collisions while driving. Specifically, the data were analyzed against the Ministry of Transport collision reports for each of the drivers to measure the exposure of the driver to the collision location prior to the collision and the ongoing exposure to the location after the collision as a measure of driving behaviour. In this report, a convenience sample of 6 older drivers from Ottawa, Canada that had differing physical and cognitive health status and had a total of 9 collisions is reported. The collisions were split between atfault and not at-fault for the study participants. The measurement of exposure to the collision location results showed that with the exception of 1 collision, the drivers all had regular and in many cases frequent exposure to the collision location prior to the collision, indicating that lack of familiarity was not a factor in most of the collisions. The measurement of the exposure information after the collisions also showed that none of the drivers avoided the collision location with statistical significance. In fact, in many cases, the drivers’ exposure increased with statistical significance. Hence, there is no indication of avoidance behaviour regardless of health status associated with the collision location, something that was unexpected.

A novel CMOS compatible photo oxidation (PO) technology is proposed in this paper which, by only using standard DUV photo lithography process, demonstrates a strong oxidation capability to form CMOS compatible WOx. The oxidation occurs through catalytic chemical reaction during the post exposure baking (PEB) process. Based on this unique PO process, a high performance forming free 1T-1R WOx ReRAM is demonstrated. Furthermore, this PO WOx ReRAM can withstand high temperature baking (@ 250°C) for 30 min thus is suitable for embedded systems that require pre-coding, and automotive and other industrial applications.

For CMOS, memory array power up (no pattern loaded) is an acceptable TID worst-case dosing condition; however, this condition may not represent a post exposure worst-case electrical characterization.

A partial least squares regression (PLSR) model that classified the FTIR spectra of Mock, Coxsackievirus and HSV1 infected vero cells with sensitivities of 85%, 85% and 90%, respectively, was developed. Fourteen discriminators obtained by partial least squares regression performed on difference spectra from 20 independent infection experiments were examined. Sorting the FTIR absorbance of the five best discriminators and dividing them into equal intervals gave an accuracy of 92%. This constitutes proof of concept at 6 hours post exposure for discriminating two infections from each other and from Mock infected cells. When the PLSR model was combined with a 14×7×3 artificial neural network, the best sensitivity and accuracy were obtained with the neural network trained to an RMS error of 0.100 within 400,000 iterations. The sensitivities were Mock = 80%, HSV1 = 90% and Coxsackievirus = 70%, for an overall accuracy of 80% based on 10 Mock, 10 HSV1 and 10 Coxsackievirus test samples.

We have shown that process effects induced by extending the softbake (SB) and post-exposure bake (PEB) temperature in the process flow of chemically amplified photoresists can lead to significant improvements in depth-of-focus (DOF) and exposure latitude (EL) and small geometry printing capability (resolution). Through careful optimization of SB and PEB temperature, dense line and space structures of 160 nm and below can be printed with substantially big process margin, using binary masks and 248 nm lithography under the half annular illumination mode. Besides, we have also shown that the optical proximity effect, namely the non-linearity, proximity bias and line-end shortening in specific is tunable by changing the SB and PEB temperatures. The main objective of this study is to demonstrate how, using 248 nm lithography with binary masks and with a moderate resolution enhancement technique (RET); the process latitude can be improved besides minimizing the impact from optical proximity effect.

Recently, a Blu-ray Disc (BD) has been proposed as a rewritable optical disc, in which HDTV digital data can be recorded for two hours or more. It has a capacity of about 25 GB with a size of 120 mm in diameter. It employs a blue laser of 405 nm wavelength and an objective lens with an NA of 0.85 to reproduce through a transparent substrate which is about 0.1 mm-thick. We conducted experiments to study a read only memory (ROM) disc with the same capacity as BD. Then, we confirmed the feasibility of the dual layer ROM disc with density equivalent to 50 GB capacity, which can be read from one side. We report the experimental results on recording of the master and the results of the evaluations.

Digital Dual-Band Infrared Imaging (DDBII) is a non invasive technique for speedy examinations of skin contamination/injury due to mustard exposure. In preliminary studies, live pig skin was exposed to nitrogen mustard (HN2) which was used as a surrogate agent for sulfur mustard. Thirty minute exposures of pig skin to HN2 produced visible erythema after a couple of hours, while the vehicle only (ethanol) treated spots remained unchanged. On the other hand, DDBII examination of the agent and vehicle treated spots, starting at 20 minutes with follow up readings at 1.5, 3, 6 and 22 hours post exposure, revealed a general cooling of the HN2 treated areas. At 22 hours a transient heat stress challenge failed to produce the expected normal flush in HN2 treated areas, indicating a possible lack of sympathetic response, the mechanism of which needs to be elucidated. DDBII was able to detect mustard contamination/injury prior to the clinical manifestations. This makes DDBII a promising technique for evaluating the efficacy of prophylactic drug candidates for mustards. DDBII also has the potential for use in evaluation of exposure to mustards in the field with on-site or remote, real time evaluations.