A resistor bypass circuit for a series lighting circuit includes a plurality of serially connected light sources and a bypass resistor being connected in parallel with at least one of the respective light sources, each respective light source being low wattage and being capable operating on a one hundred percent duty cycle as desired.

The present invention relates to a method for producing a halogen lamp, including the following steps: providing a glass tube blanket; dip-coating of the glass tube blanket using a sol gel process having an inorganic coating; forming a lamp bulb from the coated glass tube blanket. The present invention relates further to a halogen lamp produced accordingly.

Techniques and mechanisms for evaluating misalignment of circuit structures. In an embodiment, infrared (IR) radiation is variously focused on different planes of an assembly including an integrated circuit (IC) chip and a substrate that is to be coupled to, or that is coupled to, the IC chip. The cross-sectional planes include respective structures that variously reflect IR radiation. The reflected IR radiation is measured to create images each representing a corresponding cross-section of the assembly. In another embodiment, respective reference features of the images are identified and evaluated to determine whether a misalignment between the reference features satisfies one or more threshold test conditions.