The Hamood-ur-Rahman Commission Report

The Hamoodur Rahman Commission (otherwise known as "Hamood-ur-Rahman Commission"), were an inquiry judicial commission reports on the history of Pakistan's political–military assessed involvement in East-Pakistan from 1947 to 1971. The Commission was set up on July 1972 by the Government of Pakistan and chaired under the Chief Justice Hamoodur Rahman.

Constituted "to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the atrocities and 1971 war", including the "circumstances in which the commander of the Eastern High Command, surrendered theEastern contingent forces under his command laid down their arms."

The commission's final report was very lengthy and provided evaluated analysis based extensive interviews and testimonies. Its primary conclusion was very critical of the role of Pakistan's military interference and misconduct of politicians as well as intelligence failure of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) permitted the infiltration of Indian agents all along the borders of East Pakistan.

Originally, there were 12 copies of the Report. These were all destroyed; except the one that was handed over to Government who disallowed its publication at the time. In 2000, parts of the commission report was leaked equally to Indian and Pakistani newspapers, Dawn, in its editorial section. The full report was declassified by the government in 2000, with additional reports concerning the year of 1971.

The commission challenged the claims by Bangladesh authorities that 3 million Bengalis had been killed by Pakistan army and 200,000 women were raped. The commission, put the casualty figure as low as 26,000 civilian casualties.

Findings:

Volume I of the main report dealt with political background, international relations, and military aspects of the events of 1971. Volume I of the supplementary report discussed political events of 1971, military aspect, surrender in East Pakistan and the moral aspect.

The Report's findings accuse the Pakistani Army of carrying out senseless and wanton arson, killings in the countryside, killing of intellectuals and professionals and burying them in mass graves, killing of Bengali Officers and soldiers on the pretence of quelling their rebellion, killing East Pakistani civilian officers, businessmen and industrialists, raping a large number of East Pakistani women as a deliberate act of revenge, retaliation and torture, and deliberate killing of members of the Hindu minority. The report accused the generals of what it called a premature surrender and said the military's continued involvement in running the government after 1958 was one reason for the corruption and ineffectiveness of senior officers. 'Even responsible service officers,' the report said, 'have asserted before us that because of corruption resulting from such involvement, the lust for wine and women and greed for lands and houses, a large number of senior army officers, particularly those occupying the highest positions, had lost not only their will to fight but also their professional competence. The report said Pakistan's military ruler at the time, General Yahya Khan, who stepped down after Pakistan's defeat in December 1971, 'permitted and even instigated' the surrender, and it recommended that he be publicly tried along with other senior military colleagues.

The report accused General Yahya Khan, of being a womanizer and an alcoholic. According to the report "Firm and proper action would not only satisfy the nation's demand for punishment where it is deserved, but would also ensure against any future recurrence of the kind of shameful conduct displayed during the 1971 war".

Download Report :

http://www.bangla2000.com/bangladesh/Independence-War/Report-Hamoodur-Rahman/default.shtm
http://img.dunyanews.tv/images/docss/hamoodur_rahman_commission_report.pdf

Aluminum for Integrated Circuit Interconnects

Aluminum for Integrated Circuit Interconnects:
From Materials Science and Engineering By William D. Callister, Jr. (Very good Book)

The heart of all computers and other electronic devices is the integrated circuit (or IC).Each integrated circuit chip is a thin square wafer having dimensions on the order of 6 mm by 6 mm by 0.4 mm; furthermore, literally millions of interconnected electronic components and circuits are embedded in one of the chip faces. The base material for ICs is silicon, to which has been added very specific and extremely minute and controlled concentrations of impurities that are confined to very small and localized regions. For some ICs, the impurities are added using high-temperature diffusion heat treatments.

One important step in the IC fabrication process is the deposition of very thin and narrow conducting circuit paths to facilitate the passage of current from one device to another; these paths are called “interconnects,” and several are shown in Figure 1 (left), a scanning electron micrograph of an IC chip. Of course the material to be used for interconnects must have a high electrical conductivity— a metal, since, of all materials, metals have the highest conductivities. Table 1 cites values for silver, copper, gold, and aluminum, the most conductive metals.

Metal (Symbol)	Electrical Conductivity (Ω-mt)-1(@ room Temp)
Silver(Ag)	6.8 X  107
Copper (Cu)	6.0 X  107
Gold (Au)	4.3 X  107
Aluminum (Al)	3.8 X  107

On the basis of these conductivities, and discounting material cost, Ag is the metal of choice, followed by Cu, Au, and Al. Once these interconnects have been deposited, it is still necessary to subject the IC chip to other heat treatments, which may run as high as 500 ^oC. If, during these treatments, there is significant diffusion of the interconnect metal into the silicon, the electrical functionality of the IC will be destroyed. Thus, since the extent of diffusion is dependent on the magnitude of the diffusion coefficient, it is necessary to select an interconnect metal that has a small value of D in silicon. 

Figure 2. plots the logarithm of D versus 1/T for the diffusion, into silicon, of copper, gold, silver, and aluminum. Also, a dashed vertical line has been constructed at 500 ^oC, from which values of D, for the four metals are noted at this temperature. Here it may be seen that the diffusion coefficient for aluminum in silicon (2.5 X 10²¹ m²/s) is at least four orders of magnitude (i.e., a factor of 10⁴) lower than the values for the other three metals. Aluminum is indeed used for interconnects in some integrated circuits; even though its electrical conductivity is slightly lower than the values for silver, copper, and gold, its extremely low diffusion coefficient makes it the material of choice for this application. An aluminum-copper-silicon alloy (Al-4 wt% Cu-1.5 wt% Si) is sometimes also used for interconnects; it not only bonds easily to the surface of the chip, but is also more corrosion resistant than pure aluminum. More recently, copper interconnects have also been used. However, it is first necessary to deposit a very thin layer of tantalum or tantalum nitride beneath the copper, which acts as a barrier to deter diffusion of Cu into the silicon.