A heating element for a cooking appliance includes terminals that act as electrically conductive contact points. One or more buses are arranged between the terminals, and connect one or more heating element segments in a zig-zag configuration. The heating element segments are connected in series and are arranged parallel with one another. Each heating element segment includes a plurality of cutouts linked together and having an elliptical shape. The terminals, heating element segments, and buses are a continuous single sheet of conductive material. A method of making the heating element includes forming a pattern into the sheet of conductive material by etching the pattern into the conductive sheet using photolithography.

A modulated inductance module includes an inductor including one or more electrical conductors disposed around a ferromagnetic ceramic element formed on a semiconductor die, wherein the inductor further has two or more metal oxides having fluctuations in metal-oxide compositional uniformity less than or equal to 1.50 mol % throughout said ceramic element, the ceramic element has crystalline grain structure having a diameter that is less than or equal to 1.5 a mean grain diameter, and the semiconductor die contains active semiconductor switches or rectifying components that are in electrical communication with the one or more electrical conductors of the inductor.

A power management module, provides an inductor including one or more electrical conductors disposed around a ferromagnetic ceramic element including one or more metal oxides having fluctuations in metal-oxide compositional uniformity less than or equal to 1.50 mol % throughout the ceramic element.

Disclosures of the present invention mainly describe a copper film with buried film resistor. In the present invention, Ni, Cr, W, Ni-based compound, W-based compound, Ni-based alloy, or W-based alloy are adopted for the manufacture of a resistor layer, and a copper layer is processed to the copper film 1 with buried film resistor by being integrated with the resistor layer. Particularly, the resistor layer, formed on the copper layer through sputter-coating process, is able to show the lowest resistance less than or equal to 5 /sq. Moreover, the use of sputter-coating technology is helpful in reduction of industrial waste water. In addition, at least one electronic circuit having at least one film resistor can be formed on a printed circuit board comprising the above-mentioned copper film by just needing to complete two times of photolithography processes on the printed circuit board.

A heating plate 10 includes: a pair of glass plates 11, 12; a conductive pattern 40, 70 disposed between the pair of glass plates 11, 12 and defining a plurality of opening areas 43, 73; and a joint layer 13, 14 disposed between the conductive pattern 40, 70 and at least one of the pair of glass plates 11, 12; wherein the conductive pattern 40, 70 includes a plurality of connection elements 44, 74 that extend between two branch points 42, 72 to define the opening areas 43, 73; and a rate of the connection elements 44, 74, which are straight line segments connecting the two branch points 42, 72, relative to the plurality of connection elements 44, 74, is less than 20%.

A heating plate includes: a pair of glass plates; a conductive pattern disposed between the pair of glass plates and defining a plurality of opening areas; and a joint layer disposed between the conductive pattern and at least one of the pair of glass plates; wherein the conductive pattern includes a plurality of connection elements that extend between two branch points to define the opening areas; and a rate of the connection elements, which are straight line segments connecting the two branch points, relative to the plurality of connection elements, is less than 20%.

A resistor includes a resistive element, a protective film, and a pair of electrodes. The resistive element is made of a metal plate. The protective film is formed on the upper surface of the resistive element. The plated layers are formed to cover the electrodes. The electrodes are separated from each other with the protective film therebetween and are formed at both ends of the upper surface of the resistive element. The electrodes are formed by printing metal-containing paste.

A plasma etching method is performed by forming a desired pattern of a mask into a film including a zirconium oxide film by plasma etching with plasma generated from a first gas. The first gas consists of at least one chloride-containing gas of the group of boron trichloride, tetrachloromethane, chloride and silicon tetrachloride, at least one hydrogen-containing gas of the group of hydrogen bromide, hydrogen and methane, and a noble gas. An underlying film of a silicon oxide film or an amorphous carbon film is provided underneath the zirconium oxide film, and an etching selectivity of the zirconium oxide film to the underlying film is greater than or equal to one.

A heating element for a cooking appliance includes terminals that act as electrically conductive contact points. One or more buses are arranged between the terminals, and connect one or more heating element segments in a zig-zag configuration. The heating element segments are connected in series and are arranged parallel with one another. Each heating element segment includes a plurality of cutouts linked together and having an elliptical shape. The terminals, heating element segments, and buses are a continuous single sheet of conductive material. A method of making the heating element includes forming a pattern into the sheet of conductive material by etching the pattern into the conductive sheet using photolithography.

A cooking appliance, system, and method use one or more split-surface-area radiative heating elements and may also use one or more additional heating elements, such as microwave and convection heating elements, to heat or cook food. The radiative heating elements are used in a cooking chamber having an improved geometry. A controller includes features to adaptively learn and adjust cooking recipes based on modifications and user ratings of a particular cooking recipe or based on learning in response to analysis of modifications and user ratings of plural cooking recipes. The controller may learn from ratings of other users of similar cooking appliances via a network connection.