2003Research papers

Summary

We have developed a prototype of the MPEG-2 video stream receiver for the internet, expected to come into service in the FTTH internet age, in collaboration with NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories. This receiver conforms to the domestic standard approved by HSAC, the HIKARI Service Architecture Consortium, and is able to receive and play the video stream at 25 Mbps max.

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in Japanese

Summary

A new video coding technology "H.264" is ready to be standardized by the JVT(Joint Video Team). The JVT is a joint project of the two standards organizations such as the ITU-T VCEG(Video Coding Experts Group) and the ISO/IEC MPEG(Moving Picture Experts Group).
Although H.264 requires more processing power because of using new coding tools, it is targeted to save the bit-rate by more than 50% compared to current MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 at the same quality.
This article gives an outline of H.264, which attracts attention as a next generation of video coding standard.

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in Japanese

Summary

The authors have developed a digital cable TV system that meets the tentative specification of JCL (Japan Cable Laboratories).
This system is able to fulfil both the tentative specification of JCL and our company's original specification which is used in an already existing cable TV system which can handle both analog and digital transmission.

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in Japanese

Summary

The introduction for architecture of Digital CATV system, which enables simultaneous broadcasting of both BS Digital satellite and legacy Analog services in one CATV network.
In the Digital CATV system, BS Digital Modulated signals are multiplexed with the transmission, control and band division of existing Analog Broadcast signals.
The digital broadcast signal is composed of "In Band" and " Out of Band".
The digital broadcast program and the information corresponding to the digital broadcast program are multiplexed to the "In Band" signal, and the analogue program information and the system control information is are multiplexed to the "In Band" signal.

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in Japanese

Summary

The standard of the broadcasting system based on home servers is being decided at present.
It is a broadcast standard intended for receivers that have the large storage such as HDD (Hard Disk Drive).
The standardization of the broadcasting system based on Home Servers was carried out in the Telecommunication Council, Ministry of pubblic Management, Home Affairs, Posts and Telecommunications.

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in Japanese

Summary

In the next generation optical disk (Blu-ray Disc) system that utilized high NA, it is necessary to compensate spherical aberrations caused by the variations of the cover layer thickness. Up to now, authors have reported that this aberration can be corrected by using the birefringence of the liquid crystal.
A new electrode composition with a resistance layer was examined this time, and this electrode composition was found to be effective to the aberration correction.

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in Japanese

Summary

The 5th generation pickup for DVD-R/RW and CD-R/RW, the "R5" was developed. The R5 pickup attained the large reduction of weight, and cost, compared to the conventional recording system pickup, by reexamination of the fundamental design and deletion of the anamorphic prism, adoption of a liquid crystal element, etc.
Moreover, the circuit on FPC is optimized so that highly precise signal transmission can be performed, and a high sensitivity actuator which has improved the conventional performance further was designed. As a result, 4X DVD-R recording and 2X DVD-RW recording were enabled.

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in Japanese

Summary

A next generation optical disk is required to have over 23 GB recording capacity for over 2 hour storage of digital high-definition television data. Because the track pitch becomes narrower for such a large capacity disk, high resolution and a high accuracy mastering system is required. To realize this objective, the authors have developed an electron beam recorder (EBR) and have been studying to fabricate master stampers for the next generation optical disk and for future optical disks. The authors have tried to improve the recording positional accuracy and have confirmed that the EBR has a promising ability for high accuracy recording.

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in Japanese

Summary

In order to improve the recording speed of an electron beam recorder, we applied a chemically amplified (CA) resist, which has high sensitivity, to optical disk mastering. We investigated the influence of the development power and the temperature of Post Exposure Bake (PEB) to the pattern size and so forth. Furthermore we made Blu-ray type read only memory (ROM) disks and obtained a 6.4% jitter value and 2.5 m/s recording speed that was over three times higher than the conventional one.

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in Japanese

Summary

Pioneer's plasma displays (PDPs) are known by their high image quality and high luminous efficiency. In this paper, the goal of our technical development and the original technologies developed for the purpose are explained.
From the early stage of the R&D, the goal has been large screen area, high image quality (high resolution, good gradation and good moving image), low power consumption (high luminous efficiency) and low production cost. Now technologies of T- shape electrode, Waffle rib and high Xenon content gas have been developed for high efficiency luminous panels, and the power consumption of our PDPs has reached a level lower than or equal to that of LCDs. The image quality has been improved to the level better than that of CRTs by the introduction of CREAR (CLEAR?) driving method and original high quality video processing. We are continuously developing new technologies which will lead PDP and display technologies.

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in Japanese

Summary

It is shown that the emission characteristics of a previously reported MIS-type electron emission device termed HEED (High Efficiency Electro-Emission Device) can be significantly improved by appropriate arrangements of the emission site structures. Using this emitter as an excitation source, a 4-inch prototype flat panel display has been fabricated on a glass substrate. The panel operates well at a practical brightness of 2000 cd/m².

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in Japanese

Summary

Organic electroluminescent (OEL) displays attract great attention as the next generation flat panel display. OEL displays have particular characteristics such as self emitting nature and very thin structure, but they have a weak point of low tolerance to the moisture. This paper summarizes the mass-production situation, the features, materials, process, driving system, and the novel technological approach to get high-efficiency on the OEL display. One of the future challenges of the OEL display is the improvement of reliability, and we need a level of cleanliness equal to a semiconductor factory. Though OEL display's technology is relatively immature compared with that of LCDs, they have the potential to overtake them someday.

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in Japanese

Summary

We report an ultrahigh-density ferroelectric data recording based on purely electrical method, using scanning nonlinear dielectric microscopy (SNDM) technique and ferroelectric thin-films of LiTaO₃ crystal. A nano-sized domain dot array of area density of 1.50 Tbit/inch² has been successfully demonstrated in a z-surface of congruent LiTaO₃ crystal film. The radius of domain dots was 10.4 nm. These nano dots were quite stable with time, and rewritable. We also studied about ferroelectric domain inversion characteristics using stoichiometric LiTaO₃ crystal film, and a very small nano-sized domain dot with a radius of 6 nm was successively forme.

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in Japanese

Summary

We review recent progress in inorganic photorefractive crystals for holographic recording. Major development is the photon-gated two-color holography in LiNbO₃ and LiTaO₃, which overcomes the longstanding issue of destructive readout. Substantial progress has been made in recent years by developing defect controlling and optimization technologies based on near-stoichiometric LiNbO₃ doped with Mn and nondoped near-stoichiometric LiTaO₃ (SLT) single crystals. We obtained more outstanding overall holographic performance in SLT than in any other materials reported so far.

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in Japanese

Summary

In case of reproduction of a wide band musical signal, the influence of intermodulation distortion from the tweeter generated by a signal with frequencies outside the audible band is indicated. However, it is not clear which parameters are affecting loudspeaker distortion characteristics. The author investigated causes of the intermodulation distortion generated by nonlinearities of the loudspeaker by calculating nonlinear differential equations based on an equivalent circuit. The result revealed that nonlinearity in the force factor, especially its asymmetry, is the prominent factor.

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in Japanese

Summary

We realized ultra-heat-resistant voice coil through development of zirconium silicon, the unique engineering ceramic used as an insulator for electric wire. The development of zirconium silicon results from the study of zirconia for its application to insulation material in lead wires in voice coils. Zirconia is a component of cubic zirconia, which is known as artificial jewelry. In a loudspeaker unit, almost all of the electric power is changed to heat in the voice coil. Such heat increases temperature of the voice coil. Since thermal damage occurs before mechanical damage during high-power input, improvement of the heat-resistance of the voice coil has been studied for many years. The ceramic voice coil, made of an electric wire with a zilconium silicon layer, can be manufactured in almost the same process as the existing ones and has greater heat resistance. The ceramic voice coil is an epoch-making invention, which has brought many advantages to loudspeakers.

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in Japanese

Summary

We developed a technology to detect driver's sleepiness by analyzing heartbeats. Several technologies for preventing drivers falling asleep at the wheel are developing. But our aim is not only to detect napping, but also to predict and prevent driver sleepiness. For research of the usefulness of this analysis, we examined the relation between sleepiness and changes of heartbeats. As a result of this, the detection of sleepiness is probable by evaluating decreases of heart rate and increases of HF, which is 'High Frequency' harmonic component of heart rate variability. We also introduce a trial device in this report.

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in Japanese

Summary

The Mounting Technology Subcommittee began investigating the introduction of lead-free solder in 1998. Evaluation of various lead-free solders and the technical examination of Manual soldering, Flow soldering, Reflow soldering was carried out, and the introduction of lead-free solder in mass production began from January, 2000.

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in Japanese

Summary

The author developed a system which collects adjustment and inspection data in real time for DVD-R / RW pickups, traverse mechanisms, and the main drive production process, and collates it in a database.
This system was improved and a function to predict or warn of deterioration of quality was implemented by calculating the Injection situation of the manufacturing process, and the rate of inspection clearance from the data.

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in Japanese

Summary

In the highly competitive manufacturing industries, it is absolutely essential for us to meet consumer needs. And responding to the growing spread of 3D design, it is important also for production departments to make use of 3D models and improve design quality of products in their early development stages.
In this article, we introduce examples of products using 3D models in production departments and their effects on product verification.

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in Japanese

Summary

We have developed a circuit board tester using the Boundary-Scan test also known as JTAG. The introduction of this circuit board to the unit assembly inspection process of DVD recorders and PDPs enabled us to shorten troubleshooting time by improving defect detection ability and by simplifying the determination of defective locations.

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in Japanese

Summary

We have developed a multi-purpose tester platform (PucWin) that can execute "Compound Multi-function Testing". We have also developed an audio signal measurement board (DaspWin) which can be installed into PucWin.
The "Compound Multi-function Test" will become essential for testing of electronic circuit units in the future, and will make available various test applications.
PucWin is in the process of being introduced into unit tests for high-end products.

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in Japanese

Summary

As miniaturization of products progresses, image inspection is replacing visual inspection as the mainstay of verification, and expensive instruments have been introduced. In this project we focused on cost and developed a general-purpose image inspection platform. Currently this is used as a button combination checker, color checker, solder printing checker, and auto-soldering checker.

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in Japanese

Summary

We have developed an integrated handler 2 multi-test specification for small size packaged OEIC(Opto Electronic Integrated Circuit)s which horizontally conveys them from dicing frame to inspection and taping processes automatically. This handler monitors with image recognition the OEIC under high-speed conveyance (flying object image recognition), and feeds forward the data to the stepping motor control. We have realized high speed and high precision of alignment with this system. Moreover, we adopted an auto reel changer, and thus were able to reduce the number of man-hours required.

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in Japanese

Summary

We have developed fundamental technology which will be necessary from the viewpoint of the production engineering when film organic EL is produced in the future.
The 2 issues facing the production of Organic EL panels, which use films that are sensitive to deformation by humidity and temperature, are the handling of the film during the process and the minimization of deformations.
As regards handling, it was found that the film could be handled steadily in the process by improvement of the method of holding it.
Moreover, for dimensional stability, Pre-Processing made it possible to minimize the dimensional change of the film, and it was found that this Pre-Processing was connected to improvements in the pattern precision.

Click for Details (PDF 476 KB)
in Japanese