All The Claims

1. A method of instructing operators in a best practices operation of a service monitoring and control (SMC) facility in a computer system comprising a plurality of services to be monitored, the SMC facility performing a plurality of functions, the computer system being supported by at least one developer that develops software executed by the computer system to provide at least one of the plurality of services, the method comprising an act of instructing operators to:
during operation of the SMC facility, assess an effectiveness of the SMC facility in monitoring the computer system; and
in response to assessments made during operation, request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the software executed by the computer system to facilitate improved performance of the SMC facility.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the software exposes information about a plurality of events to form an interface, and wherein the act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the software includes an act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the interface.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the interface includes an act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer add information about at least one additional event to the interface.
4. The method of claim 2, wherein the act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the interface includes an act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer remove information about at least one of the plurality of events from the interface.
5. The method of claim 2, wherein the act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the interface includes an act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer modify information about at least one of the plurality of events in the interface.
6. The method of claim 2, wherein the plurality of functions performed by the SMC facility is controlled, at least in part, by a plurality of rules which define a manner in which the SMC facility responds to an occurrence of one or more of the plurality of events, and wherein the act of instructing operators to assess includes an act of instructing operators to assess the effectiveness of the plurality of rules in maintaining an available computer system.
7. The method of claim 1, further comprising an act of instructing operators to, prior to operating the SMC facility, instruct the at least one developer to define a health model for the software executed by the computer system.
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the at least one software developer exposes information related to the performance of the software, the exposed information forming, at least in part, management instrumentation for the SMC facility, and wherein the health model identifies at least one healthy state and at least one degraded state for the software in terms of the exposed information.
9. The method of claim 8, wherein the act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the software includes an act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer modify the exposed information to facilitate improved management instrumentation.
10. The method of claim 8, further comprising an act of instructing operators to, prior to operating the SMC facility, establish the SMC facility.
11. The method of claim 10, wherein the act of instructing operators to establish the SMC facility includes an act of instructing operators to consult with the at least one software developer about the exposed information to facilitate a desired management instrumentation.
12. The method of claim 11, wherein the act of instructing operators includes an act of instructing operators to determine SMC tool requirements.
13. The method of claim 12, wherein the act of instructing operators includes an act of instructing operators to implement at least one SMC tool based on the determination of SMC tool requirements.
14. The method of claim 13, wherein the act of instructing operators to assess includes an act of instructing operators to assess the effectiveness of the at least one SMC tool.
15. The method of claim 14, wherein the act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the software includes an act of instructing operators to request that the at least one developer provide additional information accessible by the at least one SMC tool.
16. A method of operating a service monitoring and control (SMC) facility in a computer system comprising a plurality of services to be monitored, the SMC facility performing a plurality of functions, the computer system being supported by at least one developer that develops software executed by the computer system, the method comprising acts of:
during operation of the SMC facility, assessing an effectiveness of the SMC facility in monitoring the computer system; and
in response to assessments made during operation, requesting that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the software executed by the computer system to facilitate improved performance of the SMC facility.
17. The method of claim 16, wherein the software exposes information about a plurality of events to form an interface, and wherein the act of requesting includes an act of requesting that the at least one developer implement at least one change to the interface.
18. The method of claim 17, wherein the act of requesting includes an act of requesting that the at least one developer add information about at least one additional event to the interface.
19. The method of claim 17, wherein the act of requesting includes an act of requesting that the at least one developer remove information about at least one of the plurality of events from the interface.
20. The method of claim 17, wherein the act of requesting includes an act of requesting that the at least one developer modify information about at least one of the plurality of events in the interface.
21. The method of claim 17, wherein the SMC facility includes a plurality of rules which define a manner in which the SMC facility responds to an occurrence of one or more of the plurality of events, and wherein the act of assessing includes an act of assessing the effectiveness of the plurality of rules in maintaining an available computer system.
22. The method of claim 16, further comprising an act of, prior to operating the SMC facility, instructing the at least one software developer to define a health model for the software executed by the computer system.
23. The method of claim 22, wherein the at least one software developer exposes information related to the operation of the software to form, at least in part, management instrumentation for the SMC facility, and wherein the software developer defines the health model to identify at least one healthy state and at least one degraded state in terms of at least some of the exposed information.
24. The method of claim 23, wherein the act of requesting includes an act of requesting that the at least one developer modify at least some of the exposed information to facilitate improved management instrumentation.
25. The method of claim 23, further comprising an act of, prior to operating the SMC facility, establishing the SMC facility.
26. The method of claim 25, wherein the act of establishing the SMC facility includes an act of consulting with the at least one developer about the exposed information to achieve a desired management instrumentation of the SMC facility.
27. The method of claim 26, wherein the act of establishing includes an act of determining SMC tool requirements.
28. The method of claim 27, further comprising an act of implementing at least one SMC tool based on the determination of the SMC tool requirements.
29. The method of claim 28, wherein the act of assessing includes an act of assessing the effectiveness of the at least one SMC tool.
30. The method of claim 29, wherein the act of requesting includes an act of requesting that the at least one developer provide additional information accessible by the at least one SMC tool.

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. An optical disc drive comprising:
an optical pickup base including an optical pickup movable in a radius direction of an optical disc; and
a main base holding the optical pickup base,
wherein the main base comprises a guide rib protruding from the main base and guiding air flow generated by a rotation of the optical disc to the optical pickup.
2. The optical disc drive of claim 1, wherein, when the main base is divided into an upper portion including a rotating plane of the optical disc and a lower portion where the optical pickup base is positioned with respect to a thickness of the main base, the guide rib is provided at one side of the lower portion and is formed in a direction substantially at right angles to the air flow.
3. The optical disc drive of claim 2, wherein the guide rib is positioned at left when viewed from a front surface of the optical disc drive.
4. The optical disc drive of claim 2, wherein a reinforcement rib is provided on a boundary of the upper and lower portions so as to be substantially in parallel to a rotating plane of the optical disc in a back and forth direction of the main base along the boundary, and
the reinforcement rib has a guide through hole penetrating the reinforcement rib so that the air flow in the upper portion continues to the lower portion.
5. The optical disc drive of claim 1, wherein the optical pickup comprises an air spoiler, and the air spoiler is positioned at left of the optical pickup when viewed from the front surface of the optical disc drive and positioned at inner circumference of the optical pickup.
6. The optical disc drive of claim 5, wherein the air spoiler is formed in a shape of a protrusion in an upper side when viewed from a side of the optical pickup.
7. The optical disc drive of claim 5, wherein the air spoiler is formed in the optical pickup, further outward than an arc contacting a spindle motor, and protrudes in a tangent direction of a contour of the spindle motor near an end of the arc contacting the spindle motor.
8. An optical pickup comprising:
an objective lens for irradiating a laser beam on a disc; and
an air spoiler for preventing contamination of the objective lens.
9. The optical pickup of claim 8, wherein the air spoiler is positioned at inner circumference of the optical pickup where the optical pickup is in contact with a spindle motor and at left of the optical pickup when viewing the object lens from the spindle motor.
10. The optical pickup of claim 9, wherein the air spoiler is formed in a shape of a protrusion in an upper side when viewed from a side of the optical pickup.
11. The optical pickup of claim 9, wherein the air spoiler is formed in the optical pickup, further outward than an arc contacting the spindle motor, and protrudes in a tangent direction of a contour of the spindle motor near an end of the arc contacting the spindle motor.

1. A processor implemented method for flushing a register access instruction from a pipeline functional unit having a plurality of stages, wherein each stage in the plurality of stages has an associated dependency tracking register in a plurality of dependency tracking registers, coupled to circuit logic of the stage, the method comprising:
detecting a register access instruction in an issue stage targeting a register;
detecting a load of the register in a subsequent stage, the load being issued to the pipeline functional unit prior to issuing the register access instruction;
in response to detecting the register access instruction in the issue stage and detecting the load of the register in the subsequent stage, marking a bit as a marked bit in a first dependency tracking register associated with the issue stage, wherein each dependency tracking register in the plurality of dependency tracking registers has a separate bit associated with each stage in the plurality of stages of the pipeline functional unit, and wherein the marked bit is a bit, in the first dependency tracking register, corresponding to the subsequent stage thereby identifying the register access instruction as being dependent upon the load, wherein the marked bit is associated with the issue stage and the subsequent stage;
propagating the register access instruction from the issue stage to a third stage;
propagating the marked bit from the first dependency tracking register to a second dependency tracking register, in the plurality of dependency tracking registers, associated with the third stage;
responsive to propagating the register access instruction to the third stage, propagating the register access instruction to a flush stage;
responsive to propagating the marked bit to the third stage, propagating the marked bit to the flush stage; and
responsive to propagating the register access instruction to the flush stage and responsive to propagating the marked bit to the flush stage, flushing the register access instruction from the pipeline functional unit so that the register access instruction is not propagated to a next stage prior to reaching a final stage.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein propagating the marked bit to the third stage comprises:
determining whether a stall occurred in a stall circuit; and
in response to determining that a stall has occurred, setting the third stage as the issue stage, and wherein the method further comprises, if the stall has occurred, copying a prior stage flush latch bit to a flush latch of the issue stage.
3. The method of claim 1, wherein propagating the marked bit to the third stage comprises:
determining whether a stall occurred at a stall circuit;
if the stall has occurred, placing a logic result of a load-miss signal and a least significant bit of a dependency tracking register in a flush latch of the issue stage, and
if the stall has occurred, moving bits more significant to a least significant bit of a dependency tracking register a step right wherein the dependency tracking register is associated with the issue stage.
4. The method of claim 3, wherein placing the logic result further comprises:
logical ANDing the load-miss signal and the least significant bit of the dependency tracking register to form an intermediate result; and
logical ORing a stage flush latch and the intermediate result to form the logic result.
5. A system for flushing instructions dependent upon a missed load instruction in a pipeline architecture having a plurality of stages comprising an issue stage and an execution stage for processing instructions, wherein each stage in the plurality of stages has an associated dependency tracking register in a plurality of dependency tracking registers, coupled to circuit logic of the stage, the system comprising:
an operand dependency checking circuit for detecting a dependency between an issue stage register access instruction with an instruction in a subsequent stage and marking a bit as a marked bit in a first dependency tracking register associated with the issue stage, wherein each dependency tracking register in the plurality of dependency tracking registers has a separate bit associated with each stage in the plurality of stages of a pipeline functional unit, and wherein the marked bit is a bit, in the first dependency tracking register, corresponding to the subsequent stage thereby identifying the register access instruction as being dependent upon the instruction in the subsequent stage, and wherein the marked bit is associated with the subsequent stage in a dependency tracking register;
a detect load miss circuit for detecting a cache miss of an instruction loading a register and outputting a load miss signal upon occurrence of a cache miss;
at least one propagate circuit for marking at least one flush latch in response to the load miss signal; and
a flush circuit for flushing an execution stage instruction from the pipeline functional unit so that the execution stage instruction is not propagated to a next stage prior to reaching a final stage based on an execution stage flush bit, wherein the marked bit is propagated from one dependency tracking register to another dependency tracking register in the plurality of dependency tracking registers as the issue stage register access instruction is propagated through the pipeline architecture.
6. The system of claim 5 wherein the at least one propagate circuit is a logical AND of the load miss signal with a least significant bit of a dependency tracking register providing a first input to a logical OR having a second input from a flush latch providing an output bit to a subsequent stage.
7. The system of claim 5 wherein the operand dependency checking circuit detects a dependency when an issue stage contains a register access instruction for accessing a target register and a miss queue contains an instruction to load the target register.
8. The system of claim 5 wherein the operand dependency checking circuit detects a dependency when an issue stage contains a register access instruction for accessing a target register and a subsequent stage contains a register access instruction for accessing the target register.
9. The system of claim 8 wherein the at least one propagate circuit is a logical AND of the load miss signal with a least significant bit of a dependency tracking register providing a first input to a logical OR having a second input from a flush latch providing a bit to a subsequent flush latch.
10. The system of claim 5, wherein each stage in the plurality of stages comprises:
a propagation logic circuit;
a dependency tracking register, from the plurality of dependency tracking registers, coupled to the propagation logic circuit; and
a flush latch coupled to the propagation logic circuit, wherein the propagation logic circuit receives as input a load miss signal, from a detect load miss circuit, indicative of whether a load instruction resulted in a cache miss, an output of a least significant bit of the dependency tracking register of the stage, and a flush latch bit, and wherein the propagation logic circuit outputs a result value to a flush latch of a next stage in the plurality of stages.
11. The system of claim 10, wherein the propagation logic circuit of each stage comprises an AND gate coupled to an OR gate, and wherein:
the AND gate receives both the load miss signal and the least significant bit of the dependency tracking register of the stage as inputs and generates an output that is input to the OR gate, and
the OR gate receives both the output from the AND gate and a flush latch bit from the flush latch of the stage, and outputs a result to a flush latch of the next stage.
12. The system of claim 5, wherein a subset of stages in the plurality of stages further comprises:
a first stall circuit coupled to the dependency tracking register and a dependency tracking register of the next stage in the plurality of stages; and
a second stall circuit coupled to the propagate circuit, a flush latch of the stage, and a flush latch of the next stage in the plurality of stages, and wherein the first stall circuit governs propagation of contents of the dependency tracking register of the stage to the dependency tracking register of the next stage, and the second stall circuit governs propagation of a flush latch bit in the flush latch of the stage to a flush latch of the next stage.
13. The system of claim 5, wherein, for each subsequent stage in the plurality of stages, an associated dependency tracking register has a smaller width than a dependency tracking register of a previous stage in the plurality of stages.
14. The system of claim 5, wherein:
the operand dependency checking circuit is coupled to circuitry of each stage in the plurality of stages and a load miss queue,
the operand dependency checking circuit receives an input from a functional unit of each stage, and
the operand dependency checking circuit determines a dependency between the issue stage register access instruction with an instruction in a subsequent stage by comparing a register targeted by the issue stage register access instruction with operands of instructions held in each of the functional units of each of the stages in the plurality of stages.
15. The system of claim 14, wherein the operand dependency checking circuit further compares the register targeted by the issue stage register access instruction with operands of instructions held in the load miss queue and sets a flush bit of a flush latch of the issue stage in response to detecting a match between the register targeted by the issue stage register access instruction and an operand of an instruction held in the load miss queue.
16. A method for flushing instructions in a pipeline architecture having a plurality of stages comprising at least an issue stage and an execution stage for processing instructions, wherein each stage in the plurality of stages has an associated dependency tracking register in a plurality of dependency tracking registers, coupled to circuit logic of the stage, the method comprising:
detecting a dependency of a register access instruction in the issue stage with an instruction in a subsequent stage and marking a bit as a marked bit in a first dependency tracking register associated with the issue stage, wherein each dependency tracking register in the plurality of dependency tracking registers has a separate bit associated with each stage in the plurality of stages of a pipeline functional unit, and wherein the marked bit is a bit, in the first dependency tracking register, corresponding to the subsequent stage thereby identifying the register access instruction as being dependent upon the instruction in the subsequent stage, and wherein the marked bit is associated with the subsequent stage in a dependency tracking register;
storing a bit associated with the subsequent stage in a dependency tracking register;
detecting a cache miss of an instruction loading a register;
responsive to detecting the cache miss, outputting a load miss signal;
marking at least one flush latch in response to the load miss signal from a detect load miss circuit; and
flushing an instruction in an execution stage from the pipeline functional unit so that the instruction is not propagated to a next stage prior to reaching a final stage in response to an execution stage flush bit present in an execution stage flush latch, wherein the marked bit is propagated from one dependency tracking register to another dependency tracking register in the plurality of dependency tracking registers as the issue stage register access instruction is propagated through the pipeline architecture.
17. The method of claim 16 wherein the marking further comprises:
logical ANDing of the load miss signal with a least significant bit of a dependency tracking register; and
logical ORing a first input with a second input from a flush latch to provide an output bit to a subsequent stage.
18. The method of claim 16 wherein detecting a dependency comprises:
detecting a dependency when an issue stage contains a register access instruction for accessing a target register and a miss queue contains an instruction to load the target register.
19. The method of claim 16 wherein detecting a dependency comprises:
detecting a dependency when an issue stage contains a register access instruction for accessing a target register and a subsequent stage contains an instruction to load the target register.
20. The method of claim 19 wherein marking comprises:
logical ANDing of the load miss signal with a least significant bit of a dependency tracking register providing a first input to a logical OR having a second input from a flush latch providing an output bit to a subsequent flush latch.
21. An information handling system comprising:
a memory;
a processor coupled to the memory, wherein the processor has a plurality of stages comprising at least one issue stage and an execution stage for processing instructions, wherein each stage in the plurality of stages has an associated dependency tracking register in a plurality of dependency tracking registers, coupled to circuit logic of the stage, the processor comprising:
an operand dependency checking circuit for detecting a register access instruction, in the at least one issue stage, targeting a register and detecting a load of the register in a subsequent stage, and marking a bit as a marked bit in a first dependency tracking register associated with the issue stage, wherein each dependency tracking register in the plurality of dependency tracking registers has a separate bit associated with each stage in the plurality of stages of a pipeline functional unit, and wherein the marked bit is a bit, in the first dependency tracking register, corresponding to the subsequent stage thereby identifying the register access instruction as being dependent upon the load, and wherein the marked bit is associated with the subsequent stage in a dependency tracking register;
a detect load miss circuit for detecting a cache miss of an instruction loading a register and outputting a load miss signal upon occurrence of a cache miss;
at least one propagate circuit for marking at least one flush latch in response to the load miss signal; and
a flush circuit for flushing an execution stage instruction from the pipeline functional unit so that the execution stage instruction is not propagated to a next stage prior to reaching a final stage based on an execution stage flush bit, wherein the marked bit is propagated from one dependency tracking register to another dependency tracking register in the plurality of dependency tracking registers as the issue stage register access instruction is propagated through the plurality of stages.

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. An inspection apparatus for inspecting a board used in a liquid crystal panel, in which a liquid crystal driving signal is applied to said board to cause a potential variation in an electrode of said board, and said potential variation is detected in a non-contact manner, said inspection apparatus comprising:
detect means for detecting the potential variation in said electrode by use of a plurality of sensor elements; and
select means for outputting a select signal for selecting said sensor elements, wherein
each of said sensor elements is formed on a single crystal of a semiconductor or on a flat plate, and
each of said sensor elements includes;
a passive device operable as a counter electrode coupled capacitively with said electrode to detect the potential variation in said electrode and generate a detect signal, and
a transistor adapted to output said detect signal in response to said select signal.
2. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein each of said sensor elements include sensor electrodes that are located around a position at which a counter electrode serving as one component of said liquid crystal panel is to be installed.
3. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein said liquid crystal panel is a TFT liquid crystal panel comprising a thin-film transistor having a source electrode, drain electrode and gate electrode, wherein said detect means is adapted to detect the potential variation in said drain electrode caused by applying the liquid crystal driving signal to said source and gate electrodes.
4. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein said transistor of each of said sensor elements is a current-readout MOSFET having a source, drain and gate, wherein said passive device is continuously formed with a diffusion layer served as said source, and said detect signal is obtained front said drain by inputting said select signal into said gate.
5. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein said transistor of each of said sensor elements is a current-readout thin-film transistor having a source, drain and gate, wherein said passive device is connected to said source, and said detect signal is obtained from said drain by inputting said select signal into said gate.
6. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein said transistor of each of said sensor elements includes a first MOSFET and a second MOSFET connected in series with each other, wherein said passive device is connected to a gaze of said first MOSFET, and said select signal is connected to a gate of said second MOSFET, wherein a potential of a source of said first MOSFET is varied in response to the potential of said passive device applied to said gate of said first MOSFET, said varied potential being received by a drain of said second MOSFET, and said received potential being outputted from a source of said second MOSFET as said detect signal.
7. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein said transistor of each of said sensor elements includes a first thin-film transistor and a second first thin-film transistor connected in series with each other, wherein said passive device is connected to a gate of said first thin-film transistor, and said select signal is connected to a gate of said second thin-film transistor, wherein a potential of a source of said first thin-film transistor is varied in response to be potential of said passive device applied to said gate of said first thin-film transistor, said varied potential being received by a drain of said second thin-film transistor, and said received potential being outputted from a source of said second thin-film transistor as said detect signal.
8. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein said transistor of each of said sensor elements is a bipolar transistor having an emitter, collector and base, wherein said passive device is connected to said emitter, and said detect signal is obtained from said collector by inputting said select signal to said base.
9. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, which further includes a charge-supply MOSFET for supplying a charge to said passive device in response to the potential variation in said electrode to form a potential barrier so as not to cause the backflow of said supplied charge before completing the potential variation in said electrode, said charge-supply MOSFET having a drain formed continuously with diffusion layer serving as said passive device.
10. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein said sensor elements are arranged in a matrix form.
11. An inspection apparatus as defined in claim 1, which further includes a conductor plate in contact with the surface of said passive device.
12. A method for inspecting a board used in a liquid crystal panel, in which a liquid crystal driving signal is applied to said board to cause a potential variation in an electrode of a board used in said liquid crystal panel, wherein
each of a plurality of sensor elements is formed on a single crystal of a semiconductor or on a flat plate, and each of said sensor elements includes a passive device and a transistor,
said method including;
locating said plurality of sensor elements without contact near said board;
applying a liquid crystal driving signal to said board to cause a potential variation in an electrode of said board;
coupling, as a counter electrode, said passive device with said electrode of said board to detect a potential variation in said board electrode, said coupling being effected in a non-contact manner; and
using said transistor to output a detect signal from said passive device.