Chemical vapor deposition of thin films for ULSI interconnect metallization

We have studied the kinetics of copper chemical vapor deposition (CVD) for interconnect metallization using solution delivery of Cu(hfac)2 (Cu(II) hexafluoroacetyl-acetonate) dissolved in isopropanol. We observe a growth rate of 17.7 „b 1.5 nm/min at reference conditions of 300„aC substrate temperature, 0.025 Torr Cu(hfac)2 partial pressure, 1.6 Torr isopropanol (reducing agent), and 80 Torr H2 (carrier gas). The film resistivity approaches the bulk value of copper for film thickness greater than 100 nm. Reaction order experiments show first-order kinetics with respect to Cu(hfac)2 partial pressure and zero-order with respect to isopropanol. A series reaction mechanism including three kinetically significant steps (adsorption of Cu(hfac)2, dissociation of (hfac) ligand, and desorption of (hfac)) is used to describe the observed kinetic results. The proposed rate determining step is the dissociation of (hfac) ligand when the pressure ratio of Cu(hfac)2 to isopropanol is low, and becomes the desorption of (hfac) when the pressure ratio is high. We also examined a low temperature chemical vapor deposition process for the growth of tantalum thin films using SiH4 reduction of TaF5. Using a temperature of 350„aC and reactant partial pressures of 0.2 Torr TaF5 and 0.3 Torr SiH4, we obtain a growth rate of 2.2 ¡Ó 1.7 nm/min. The XPS analysis results show that the Ta film is Si free, but contains relatively high oxygen concentration because of residual gas contamination. Lastly, we have studied a batch CVD process for palladium seed layer deposition using H2 reduction of Pd(hfac)2 (Pd(II) hexafluoroacetylacetonate). Nano-sized Pd particles with nuclei density between 1 to 14 clusters/ƒÝm2 are observed using AFM. The quality of the Pd seed layer is examined by depositing electroless copper film. We have investigated the influence of CVD operating conditions (deposition time, activation temperature, and precursor concentration) on the activity of the Pd seed layers (i.e., by monitoring visual appearance and deposition rates of the ELD Cu films). At the optimized conditions we can deposit uniform Cu films at a rate of 3.4 „b 1.4 nm/s. Additional work is needed to improve the resistivity and adhesion of the films

The Effect of Force on Fingerprint Image Quality and Fingerprint Distortion

The purpose of this paper is to investigate fingerprint quality and quality problems due to nonlinear elastic distortion. The effect of force on fingerprint quality was studied using computation and analysis of the correlation coefficient r between the fingerprint quality score and force. The correlation analysis results show that fingerprint quality is significantly attributed to force. Based on the U test, a comparative study between male and female students about the fingerprint quality was conducted. At the 0.05 level of significance, there is a significant difference between male and female students in the fingerprint quality of the flat left thumb at a greater force level and in the fingerprint quality of the slap left fingers at all force levels.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v3i3.248

Testing of Radio Frequency Identification and Parameter Analysis Based on DOE

The maximum read range of a Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) system depends on a number of factors. In this paper, the maximum read ranges of an RFID system with a handheld RFID reader and another RFID system with a fixed RFID reader were tested when a tag was attached to different materials. Distinguishing factors that influence the maximum read range is important. A design of experiments (DOE) method was used to understand and quantify the relative influence of three factors (the antenna number, the tagged material, and the RF interference) on the maximum read range of the RFID system with a fixed RFID reader. The influences of the three factors and their interaction effects were classified by an order of importance. The methods in this paper also apply to the study of other RFID systems and determining the relative influences of other selected factors or parameters as well as other materials.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v4i1.510

Iris Image Quality Testing and Iris Verification

The purpose of this study was to investigate the iris image quality and iris verification of eyes in brown, hazel, green, and blue, respectively, and the iris image quality and iris verification under different conditions such as the changed stand-off distances, the motions of the head and eyes, with glasses, and without glasses. A comparative study of three eye colors in brown, hazel, and green was conducted using a non-parametric method based on the H test. The H test results show that there is no significant difference in the iris image quality of eyes in brown, hazel, or green when the level of significance is 0.05.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v3i4.276

Public Health Promotion: Autonomy of the Emergency Nurse Practitioner

The purpose of this paper is to examine several key issues in health care reform. From the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 to the cholera epidemic in Haiti, global health care reform is necessary to promote health and wellness among all nations. There is an International shortage of nurses and nursing faculty. Among the providers, it is also necessary to examine autonomy of the most up and coming nurse provider: the emergency nurse practitioner

Data Mining Applications in Big Data

Data mining is a process of extracting hidden, unknown, but potentially useful information from massive data. Big Data has great impacts on scientific discoveries and value creation. This paper introduces methods in data mining and technologies in Big Data. Challenges of data mining and data mining with big data are discussed. Some technology progress of data mining and data mining with big data are also presented

Deep Recurrent Generative Decoder for Abstractive Text Summarization

We propose a new framework for abstractive text summarization based on a sequence-to-sequence oriented encoder-decoder model equipped with a deep recurrent generative decoder (DRGN). Latent structure information implied in the target summaries is learned based on a recurrent latent random model for improving the summarization quality. Neural variational inference is employed to address the intractable posterior inference for the recurrent latent variables. Abstractive summaries are generated based on both the generative latent variables and the discriminative deterministic states. Extensive experiments on some benchmark datasets in different languages show that DRGN achieves improvements over the state-of-the-art methods.Comment: 10 pages, EMNLP 201

Devaney Chaos on a Set-valued Map and Its Inverse Limit

We study relationships between a set-valued map and its inverse limits about the notion of periodic point set, transitivity, sensitivity and Devaney chaos. Density of periodic point set of a set-valued map and its inverse limits implies each other. Sensitivity of a set-valued map and its inverse limits does not imply each other. Transitivity and Devaney chaos of generalized inverse limits implies the corresponding property of a set-valued map