1. A system of guideway construction and vehicle design methods as described in FIG. 1-2, and FIG. 4 to 10, in which vehicles ride on the guideways groups supporting left and right wheels, with empty space between the left and the right guideways. Lane and direction switching are accomplished by guideway switching among inner, middle and outer guideways. A vehicle initiates the guideway switching by widening or narrowing its wheel width, at a horizontal section that contains at least two of the inner, middle and outer guideways. After guideway switching, upper-moving guideways (outer) could guide the vehicle up and down-moving guideways (inner) could guide the vehicle down, and straight-moving guideways (middle) could guide the vehicle forward. In this system, outer guideways are for sending vehicles to above and receiving vehicles from above; inner guideways are for sending vehicles to below and receiving vehicles from below; and middle guideways are for carrying vehicles traveling at the current level. If a vehicle at one level needs to move up, it could move out of the straight guideways by widening the space between its left wheel and the corresponding right wheel and moving to the outer guideways. If a vehicle needs to move downward, the width of its wheel spacing needs to be narrowed to match the width of inner guideways, so that the wheels could ride on the down-moving guideways. In such a transportation system, vehicles diverge from a source lane and merge into a target lane aerially either above or below the tracks. Vehicles could move between levels by going through the empty space between left guideways and the corresponding right guideways.
2. A guideway construction method of claim 1, in which outer guideways of a level could guide a vehicle up to another level and inner guideways of a level could guide a vehicle down to another level. If the later level receives the vehicle from its underside, then the guideways would curve into inner guideways of the later level, with varying left to right track width along the way. If the later level receives the vehicle from above, then the guideways would curve into outer guideways of the later level, with varying left to right track width along the way. It is convenient for multiple levels aligned vertically; however, the principle could be applied to any relative spatial location of the lanes.
3. A guideway construction method of claim 1, in which up-moving guideways and down-moving guideways have fixed width. However, the upper level guideway width is wider than that of the lower level, so that lower level outer guideways could connect to upper level inner guideways without narrowing or widening.
4. A guideway construction and vehicle design method of claim 1, by which a vehicle’s passenger or cargo compartment could be located above the guideway level, even with the guideway level and below the guideway level. Such construction method would allow the passenger or the cargo compartment of a vehicle to be lowered or raised for loading and unloading, and for safer operation due to lowered center of gravity.
5. A guideway construction and vehicle design method for directional changes of a rigid vehicle with non-rotating axles, as shown by FIG. 11 and FIG. 12. In a directional change, all outer wheels will follow a single outer guideway and the inner wheels will follow mutiple tracks, one for each inner wheel. The track trajectories are determined by tracing the movements of each inner wheel. All the inner tracks could be combined to form a wide single inner guideway to accommodate all the inner wheels. This implies that all vehicles in the system must have the same size and the same wheel locations.
6. A guideway construction method and a wheel restraining method as shown in FIG. 14, in which the guideway is a channel and the wheel assembly includes supporting wheel and guiding wheels. The edges of the channel restrain the guiding wheels and prevent a vehicle from derailing.
7. A guideway construction and vehicle design method of claim 1, with each section of the guideways as an open channel as defined by FIG. 9 and FIG. 14. The ascending and descending guideways form continuous arches that could also provide structural support for the straight moving guideways as show by FIG. 15A. This guideway construction method could accommodate dual mode vehicles that could travel both on guideways and on regular road. A dual mode vehicle could enter an elevated guideway system by aligning its wheels with a pair of up-moving guideways and exits the guideway system by aligning its wheels with a pair of down-moving guideways that lead to the ground. A dual mode vehicle could enter an underground guideway system by aligning its wheels with a pair of down-moving guideways and exits the guideway system by aligning its wheels with a pair of up-moving guideways that lead to ground openings on the street.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
1. A method, comprising:
forming a layer of insulating material above a semiconducting substrate;
performing a physical vapor deposition process to form a metal nitride layer above said layer of insulating material, said metal nitride layer having an intrinsic as-deposited stress level; and
performing at least one process operation on said metal nitride layer to reduce a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said metal nitride layer.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein said intrinsic as-deposited stress level of said metal nitride layer is a compressive stress.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein said intrinsic as-deposited stress level of said metal nitride layer is a tensile stress.
4. The method of claim 1, wherein said metal nitride layer is one of the following: titanium nitride, tantalum nitride, niobium nitride, tungsten nitride, vanadium nitride, zirconium nitride, hafnium nitride, yttrium nitride or molybdenum nitride
5. The method of claim 1, wherein said layer of insulating material is one of a TEOS-based layer of silicon dioxide that is formed by performing a CVD process, an ultra-low-k insulating material or a low-k insulating material.
6. The method of claim 1, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said metal nitride layer comprises performing an anneal process on said metal nitride layer in the presence of a forming gas.
7. The method of claim 6, wherein said forming gas comprises nitrogen and hydrogen.
8. The method of claim 6, wherein said anneal process is performed at a temperature of at least about 250\xb0 C. for a duration of at least ten minutes.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said metal nitride layer comprises performing an anneal process on said metal nitride layer in the presence of hydrogen.
10. The method of claim 9, wherein said anneal process is performed at a temperature of at least about 300\xb0 C. for a duration of at least 30 seconds.
11. The method of claim 1, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said metal nitride layer comprises performing a remote plasma process on said metal nitride layer.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein said remote plasma process is performed using ammonia.
13. The method of claim 11, wherein said remote plasma process is performed at a temperature of at least about 350\xb0 C. for a duration of at least 30 seconds.
14. The method of claim 1, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said metal nitride layer reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said metal nitride layer by at least 20%.
15. The method of claim 6, wherein performing said anneal process on said metal nitride layer in the presence of a forming gas reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said metal nitride layer by at least 66%.
16. The method of claim 9, wherein performing said anneal process on said metal nitride layer in the presence of hydrogen reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said metal nitride layer by at least 20%.
17. The method of claim 11, wherein performing said remote plasma process on said metal nitride layer reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said metal nitride layer by at least 33%.
18. The method of claim 1, wherein said layer of insulating material has a density that is less than about 2.20 gcm3.
19. A method, comprising:
forming a layer of insulating material above a semiconducting substrate;
performing a physical vapor deposition process to form a layer of titanium nitride above said layer of insulating material, said layer of titanium nitride having an intrinsic as-deposited stress level; and
performing at least one process operation on said layer of titanium nitride to reduce a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said layer of titanium nitride.
20. The method of claim 19, wherein said layer of insulating material is a TEOS-based layer of silicon dioxide that is formed by performing a CVD process.
21. The method of claim 19, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said layer of titanium nitride comprises performing an anneal process on said layer of titanium nitride in the presence of a forming gas.
22. The method of claim 21, wherein said forming gas comprises nitrogen and hydrogen.
23. The method of claim 21, wherein said anneal process is performed at a temperature of at least about 250\xb0 C. for a duration of at least ten minutes.
24. The method of claim 19, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said layer of titanium nitride comprises performing an anneal process on said layer of titanium nitride in the presence of hydrogen.
25. The method of claim 24, wherein said anneal process is performed at a temperature of at least about 300\xb0 C. for a duration of at least 30 seconds.
26. The method of claim 19, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said layer of titanium nitride comprises performing a remote plasma process on said layer of titanium nitride.
27. The method of claim 26, wherein said remote plasma process is performed using ammonia.
28. The method of claim 26, wherein said remote plasma process is performed at a temperature of at least about 350\xb0 C. for a duration of at least 30 seconds.
29. The method of claim 19, wherein performing said at least one process operation on said layer of titanium nitride reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said layer of titanium nitride by at least 20%.
30. The method of claim 21, wherein performing said anneal process on said layer of titanium nitride in the presence of a forming gas reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said layer of titanium nitride by at least 66%.
31. The method of claim 24, wherein performing said anneal process on said layer of titanium nitride in the presence of hydrogen reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said layer of titanium nitride by at least 20%.
32. The method of claim 26, wherein performing said remote plasma process on said layer of titanium nitride reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said layer of titanium nitride by at least 33%.
33. The method of claim 19, wherein said layer of insulating material has a density that is less than about 2.20 gcm3 .
34. A method, comprising:
performing a chemical vapor deposition process to form a TEOS-based layer of silicon dioxide above a semiconducting substrate;
performing a physical vapor deposition process to form a layer of titanium nitride above said TEOS-based layer of silicon dioxide, said layer of titanium nitride having an intrinsic as-deposited stress level; and
performing an anneal process on said layer of titanium nitride in the presence of a forming gas to reduce a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said layer of titanium nitride.
35. The method of claim 34, wherein said anneal process is performed at a temperature of at least about 250\xb0 C. for a duration of at least ten minutes.
36. The method of claim 35, wherein said anneal process is performed for a duration of about 20 minutes.
37. The method of claim 34, wherein said forming gas comprises nitrogen and hydrogen.
38. The method of claim 34, wherein performing said anneal process on said layer of titanium nitride in the presence of said forming gas reduces a magnitude of said intrinsic as-deposited stress level in said layer of titanium nitride by at least 66%.