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For IC design, debug capability is insurance. However, even when first silicon designs have no issues, debug capability pays because it is used in: 1. yield analysis to separate marginal design from manufacturing defect issues, and 2. characterization to improve simulations for the next design. The newest probe technology, Picosecond Imaging Circuit Analysis, enables the IC designer/engineer to characterize the gate-level performance of the IC, identify the nature of operational faults, and localize these faults to specific transistors or interconnects.

Focused ion beam (FIB) technology provides the capacity to image a chip, remove selected material from the surface, and lay down new metal as necessary. The use of FIB to image and create probepoints, in conjunction with mechanical microprobers, permits quick analog semiconductor debugging. For analog and mixed-signal ICs, the synergy of FIB and mechanical microprobing results in a shortening and simplification of the debug process. Mechanical probing is almost universally employed to acquire analog waveforms from internal nodes of integrated circuits. Probing these nodes requires creation of a growing number of probepoints both because of the increasing number of metalization layers and the increasing complexity of each new device generation. FIN allows fast, nondestructive, universal probepint creation, and the use of FIB as a debug tool is certain to increase.

In odontoblasts as well as osteoblasts, a number of mechanisms for the inflow and extrusion of Ca2+ have been demonstrated. The entrance of Ca2+ ions into odontoblasts occurs mainly through voltage-gated calcium channels. Extrusion of Ca2+ is found to be an ATP-dependent process and, in addition, Na+/Ca2+-antiports exist, which are provoked by extracellular Na+. The aim of this study was to identify the Na+/Ca2+-antiport isoforms expressed in dentinogenically active rat incisor odontoblasts and to make a comparison with different osteoblastic cells. Using RT-PCR and RNAse protection assay, we demonstrated the expression of three different isoforms, NaCa 3, 7, and 10, of the NCX1-encoded antiport in odontoblasts and osteoblastic cells. When incubated in the presence of Na+, dissected rat incisor odontoblasts as well as the osteoblastic cells extruded Ca2+ ions, as detected by chlorotetracycline and Fura-2 fluorometry, thus supporting a physiological role for the detected isoform expression. Odontoblasts and rat calvarial osteoblasts, as well as osteoblast-like cell lines UMR-106.01 and Saos-2, were shown to exhibit identical phenotypes of Na+/Ca2+-antiport isoform expression, different from the expression patterns of other tissues. The significance of this specific expression pattern is unknown, but there is a possibility that it is in some way related to the unique demands on these cell types to produce mineralized connective tissue.