Applied Micro Circuits Patent Grants

Calibration of high-speed interleaved arrays

Granted: June 30, 2015
Patent Number: 9071262
Techniques for calibration of high-speed interleaved analog-to-digital converter (ADC) arrays are presented. A transceiver comprises an ADC component that comprises an array of sub-ADCs that can be interleaved to facilitate high-speed data communications. The ADC component processes signals received from a remote transmitter to facilitate recovering the received data. The transceiver can comprise a calibration component that determines transfer characteristics of the communication…

Method and apparatus for smoothing jitter generated by byte stuffing

Granted: June 23, 2015
Patent Number: 9065610
Systems and methods for smoothing jitter generated by byte stuffing. A frequency synthesizer comprises a smoothing logic coupled with a PLL. The smoothing logic is configured to modify a phase error signal generated by a phase frequency detector into a distributed phase error signal that spread over multiple clock cycles. The distributed phase error signal is used to drive a DCO. The smoothing logic may comprise a ramping logic operable to generate a series of ramping values to…

Data dependent jitter reduction of switch driver signals in high speed current steering digital-to-analog converters

Granted: June 16, 2015
Patent Number: 9059723
Provided is a digital-to-analog converter configured to mitigate data dependent jitter of switch driver signals. The digital-to-analog converter is configured to produce data patterns of “0001000”. The digital-to-analog converter includes a digital portion that includes a digital data input component, an analog portion, and a conversion component. The conversion component includes a decoder configured to split a first data stream comprising a set of digital data into a first data…

Method and apparatus for performing table lookup

Granted: June 16, 2015
Patent Number: 9058284
Method and apparatus for performing table lookup are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes providing a lookup table, where the lookup table includes a plurality of translation modes and each translation mode includes a corresponding translation table tree supporting a plurality of page sizes. The method further includes receiving a search request from a requester, determining a translation table tree for conducting the search request, determining a lookup sequence based on…

Cache miss detection filter

Granted: May 12, 2015
Patent Number: 9032152
Systems and methods are provided that facilitate cache miss detection in an electronic device. The system contains a probabilistic filter coupled to the processing device. A probing component determines existence of an entry associated with a request. The probing component can communicate a miss token without the need to query a cache. Accordingly, power consumption can be reduced and electronic devices can be more efficient.

Fast filtering for a transceiver

Granted: May 5, 2015
Patent Number: 9025711
Techniques for fast filtering for a transceiver are presented. A multidimensional filter processor component (MDFPC) can perform configurations and adaptations of multiple digital filters of a transceiver. The MDFPC can treat multiple, separate filters of a transceiver as a single larger multidimensional filter, and jointly update the multiple filters in a single adaptation operation instead of performing multiple adaptation operations on multiple filters. To facilitate multidimensional…

Jitter mitigating phase locked loop circuit

Granted: April 14, 2015
Patent Number: 9008255
Systems and methods for efficient jitter mitigation or removal from a gapped signal. A phase mitigation module is employed to generate discrete correction values for modifying phase error signals detected between a gapped signal and a feedback signal of the PLL. The correction values can be digitally subtracted from the output of a phase frequency detector associated with the PLL. The sequence of correction values can be determined based on phase frequency differences between the input…

Managing requests to open and closed banks in a memory system

Granted: March 24, 2015
Patent Number: 8990473
Systems and methods are provided that facilitate memory storage in a memory device. The system contains a memory controller and a memory array communicatively coupled to the memory controller. The memory controller sends commands to the memory array and the memory array writes or retrieves data contained therein based upon the command. The memory controller can monitor multiple banks and manage bank activations. Accordingly, memory access overhead can be reduced and memory devices can be…

High speed transceiver based on concatenates of a leech lattice with binary and nonbinary codes

Granted: March 24, 2015
Patent Number: 8989283
A transceiver architecture can contain an encoder and a decoder for communicating high speed transmissions. The encoder can modulate signal data for being mapped in a constellation that is generated based on concatenations of a leech lattice having binary and non-binary codes. The data can be transmitted at a high speed according to the constellation with an embedded leech lattice configuration in order to generate a coding gain. A decoder operates to decode the received input signal…

Self-test design for serializer / deserializer testing

Granted: March 3, 2015
Patent Number: 8972806
Providing for testing of digital sequencing components of an integrated chip is described herein. By way of example, self-test procedures are provided for unidirectional integrated chips that have different sequence generation (e.g., transmission) and sequence monitoring (e.g., receiving) frequencies. A test logic component(s) can be added to an integrated chip to match the sequence generation frequency to the sequence monitoring frequency. This can facilitate self-testing of…

Adaptive spectral enhancement and harmonic separation

Granted: February 24, 2015
Patent Number: 8964890
A circuit and method perform adaptive spectral enhancement at a frequency ?1 (also called “fundamental” frequency) on an input signal y which includes electromagnetic interference (EMI) at an unknown frequency, to generate a fundamental-enhanced signal ?1 (or its complement). The fundamental-enhanced signal ?1 (or complement) is thereafter used in a notching circuit (also called “fundamental notching” circuit) to generate a fundamental-notched signal y-?1. The fundamental-notched…

Programmable resistance-modulated write assist for a memory device

Granted: February 24, 2015
Patent Number: 8964452
Providing for improved write processes of a semiconductor memory are disclosed herein. By way of example, a programmable write assist can be provided that includes partially discharging a supply voltage applied to a memory cell. Partially discharging the supply voltage can improve write speeds to the memory cell, as well as improve reliability of the write process. A write assist circuit can cause the discharging in response to a resistance-modulated signal. Moreover, the…

Threshold controlled limited out of order load execution

Granted: February 3, 2015
Patent Number: 8949581
A load scheduler capable of limited issuing of out of order load instruction is disclosed. The load scheduler uses a max skipping threshold which limits the number of skipping load instructions and a max skipped threshold which limits the number of skipped load instructions. An address tag for a skipping instruction is stored in a skipping load instruction tracking unit when a skipping load instruction is issued. When a skipped load instruction issues, the address tag of the skipped load…

Method and system for queuing a request by a processor to access a shared resource and granting access in accordance with an embedded lock ID

Granted: December 23, 2014
Patent Number: 8918791
A hardware-based method is provided for allocating shared resources in a system-on-chip (SoC). The SoC includes a plurality of processors and at least one shared resource, such as an input/output (IO) port or a memory. A queue manager (QM) includes a plurality of input first-in first-out memories (FIFOs) and a plurality of output FIFOs. A first application writes a first request to access the shared resource. A first application programming interface (API) loads the first request at a…

Collimated beam channel with four lens optical surfaces

Granted: December 23, 2014
Patent Number: 8917997
An optical system and method disclosed include a first lens component and a second lens component within the receive path or the transmit path. The first lens component includes at least two aspheric surfaces that oppose one another and generate a collimated beam channel. The second lens component generates a converging beam and magnifies the converging beam with a magnification factor that is different from a magnification factor in the other path, either the receive path or the…

Chromatic dispersion pre-compensation

Granted: December 9, 2014
Patent Number: 8909061
A method is provided for performing chromatic dispersion (CD) pre-compensation. The method generates an electronic signal at a transmitter, and uses a transmit CD compensation estimate to compute a CD pre-compensation filter. The transmit CD pre-compensation filter is used to process the electronic signal, generating a pre-compensated electronic signal. The pre-compensated electronic signal is converted into an optical signal and transmitted to an optical receiver via an optical channel.…

Integrated circuit thermally induced noise analysis

Granted: December 9, 2014
Patent Number: 8907691
A system and method are provided for testing an integrated circuit (IC) using thermally induced noise analysis. The method provides an IC die and supplies electrical power to the IC die. The IC die surface is scanned with a laser, and the laser beam irradiated locations on the IC die surface are tracked. The laser scanning heats active electrical elements underlying the scanned IC die surface. A frequency response of an IC die electrical interface is measured and correlated to irradiated…

Method for manufacturing a photodetector having a bandwidth tuned honeycomb cell photodiode structure

Granted: December 9, 2014
Patent Number: 8906728
A photodetector with a bandwidth-tuned cell structure is provided. The photodetector is fabricated from a semiconductor substrate that is heavily doped with a first dopant. A plurality of adjoining cavities is formed in the semiconductor substrate having shared cell walls. A semiconductor well is formed in each cavity, moderately doped with a second dopant opposite in polarity to the first dopant. A layer of oxide is grown overlying the semiconductor wells and an annealing process is…

Single carrier-frequency-division multiple access (SC-FDMA) physical uplink control channel (PUCCH) 1/1a/1b detection

Granted: November 25, 2014
Patent Number: 8897118
A method is provided for Single Carrier-Frequency-Division Multiple Access (SC-FDMA) Physical Uplink Control Channel (PUCCH) format 1/1a/1b detection in a wireless communications receiver. The receiver accepts a plurality of multicarrier signals transmitted simultaneously from a plurality of transmitters, with overlapping carrier frequencies. For each multicarrier signal, a single tap measurement of time delay is performed using a Direction of Arrival (DoA) technique. In response to the…

System and method for controlling updates of a data structure

Granted: November 25, 2014
Patent Number: 8898204
System and method for controlling updates of a data structure are disclosed. In one embodiment, the method includes providing a data structure that includes a hierarchically arranged set of nodes and branches, and each node has two or less branches, recording a total number of nodes in the data structure, determining whether to update the data structure according to one or more triggering conditions, generating an updated data structure in response to the one or more triggering…