Enron, a Perceived Crisis in Public Confidence, and the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002

In the spring of 2002 Congress passed and President Bush signed the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (BCRA), the first major piece of campaign reform legislation since the early 1970s. While momentum for reform had been growing since the mid-1990s, without the Enron scandal and its potential threat to public officials, additional support to overcome the procedural barriers and opposition from the Republican leadership in both the House and Senate would have been difficult to overcome. In addition, Bush Administration ties to Enron had the effect of demobilizing the president on the issue, making it virtually impossible for him to veto a bill he fundamentally opposed. The Enron scandal provided the "window of opportunity" needed by reform-oriented elites to pass a controversial and far-ranging law that was not a high priority on the public's agenda. The end result is a law, pending a Supreme Court ruling on its constitutionality, that has the potential to alter fundamentally how electoral campaigns are funded and conducted. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2004..

Umanesimo e rinascimento tra feltre e belluno: filologia, erudizione e biblioteche: atti del convegno di Belluno, 4 aprile 2003

Umanesimo tra Belluno e Feltre. Saggi su Pierio Valeriano, Pontico Virunio, Tommaso Didimo Zanetelli, Giambattista Scita, Giovanni Persicini, Andrea Alpago, Zaniacopo Sammartini, biblioteca Pilon

Pre‐Bond Testing Through Direct Probing of Large‐Array Fine‐Pitch Micro‐Bumps*

In order to obtain acceptable compound stack yields for 2.5D‐ and 3D‐stacked integrated circuits (SICs), there is a need to test the constituting dies before stacking. The non‐bottom dies of these stacks have their functional access exclusively through large arrays of fine‐pitch micro‐bumps, which are too dense for conventional probe technology. A common approach to obtain pre‐bond test access is to equip these dies with dedicated pre‐bond probe pads, which comes with drawbacks such as increased silicon area and test application time and reduced interconnect performance. In order to avoid the many drawbacks of dedicated pre‐bond probe pads, we advocate the usage of advanced probe technology that allows to directly probe on these micro‐bumps. This chapter reports on the technical feasibility of this approach. The economical feasibility is addressed in Chapter 9