EXPOSED SOLDERABLE HEAT SPREADER FOR FLIPCHIP PACKAGES
Granted: November 30, 2017
Application Number:
20170345744
A flipchip may include: a silicon die having a circuit side with solder bumps and a non-circuit side; a leadframe attached to the solder bumps on the circuit side of the silicon die; a heat spreader attached to the non-circuit side of the silicon die; and encapsulation material encapsulating the silicon die, a portion of the leadframe, and all but one exterior surface of the heat spreader. The leadframe may have NiPdAu plating on the portion that is not encapsulated by the encapsulation…
ENERGY STORAGE DEVICE STACK BALANCING USING SWITCHED INDUCTOR BACKGROUND
Granted: October 26, 2017
Application Number:
20170310127
An energy storage stack balancing circuit may balance a set of serially connected energy storage devices. An electronic switching system may control the delivery of energy into and out of the inductor. A controller may control the electronic switching system so as to cause energy to be transferred: from one of the energy storage devices into the inductor and then out of the inductor and into a different one, a subset, or all of the energy storage devices; or from a subset of the energy…
RIPPLE MONITORING
Granted: June 1, 2017
Application Number:
20170153296
A ripple monitoring circuit may generate information indicative of a failing component in a power supply. At least one input may receive a ripple signal from the power supply that has a ripple component. A quantization circuit may repeatedly quantize the amplitude of the ripple component. A ripple amplitude statistics counter bank may count and store the number of times that different quantized amplitudes or different ranges of quantized amplitudes of the ripple component occurred. A…
MAINTAINING LED DRIVER OPERATING POINT DURING PWM OFF TIMES
Granted: December 1, 2016
Application Number:
20160353537
A method and system of driving an LED load. There is a power stage that is configured to deliver a level of current indicated by a control signal to the LED load when a PWM signal is ON and stop delivering the level of current when the PWM signal is OFF. There is a feedback circuit that is configured to generate the operating point signal, which causes the power stage to deliver a level of current indicated by the control signal, when the PWM signal is ON. A store and hold circuit is…
MAINTAINING OUTPUT CAPACITANCE VOLTAGE IN LED DRIVER SYSTEMS DURING PWM OFF TIMES
Granted: December 1, 2016
Application Number:
20160353532
A method and system of driving an LED load. A driver is configured to deliver a level of current indicated by a control signal to the LED load when a PWM signal is ON and stop delivering the level of current when the PWM signal is OFF. An output capacitance element is coupled across a differential output of the LED driver. A feedback path, having a store circuit, is configured to store an information indicative of a first voltage level across the output capacitance element as a stored…
ACCURATELY DETECTING LOW CURRENT THRESHOLD
Granted: September 8, 2016
Application Number:
20160261255
A threshold detection circuit may sense when current between a power supply and a load reaches a current threshold level. The threshold detection circuit may include a transistor in series with the load; a feedback circuit that causes the voltage drop across the transistor to be constant while the transistor is conducting current between the power supply and the load; a constant current source that delivers a constant current into the load; and a comparator that indicates when the…
LASER DRILLING ENCAPSULATED SEMICONDUCTOR DIE TO EXPOSE ELECTRICAL CONNECTION THEREIN
Granted: September 8, 2016
Application Number:
20160260652
A method of making an integrated circuit package that contains a semiconductor die having one or more electrical connections to an electronic circuit within the semiconductor die. The method may include: encapsulating the semiconductor die and its electrical connections in non-electrically conductive, encapsulation material; laser drilling the encapsulation material to expose one of the electrical connections within the integrated circuit package, thereby creating a via opening in an…
CONTROL ARCHITECTURE WITH IMPROVED TRANSIENT RESPONSE
Granted: August 25, 2016
Application Number:
20160248327
A power supply system includes a power source; a load device configured to receive power from the power source; and a power interface device coupled to the power source and the load device and configured to change a first voltage provided by the power source to a second voltage for operating the load device. The power interface device include a main switching converter configured to operate at a first switching frequency and source low frequency current to the load device and an…
CONFIGURING SIGNAL-PROCESSING SYSTEMS
Granted: November 19, 2015
Application Number:
20150332785
A configurable signal-processing circuit may provide a plurality of selectable signal-processing operations. The configurable signal-processing circuit may have a configuration circuit that provides a configuration code that selects a first signal-processing operation from the plurality of selectable signal-processing operations based on a timing pattern for evaluating an input signal and outputting an output signal.
BOOTSTRAP SAMPLING CIRCUIT WITH ACCURATELY AVERAGING PRE-CHARGE CIRCUIT
Granted: September 24, 2015
Application Number:
20150270013
A sampling circuit may include a sampling capacitance, an electronic sampling switch, and a switch controller. The electronic sampling switch may have a control input that controls whether the electronic sampling switch is in a sample state or a hold state. The electronic sampling switch may connect the sampling capacitance to an input signal while in the sample state and disconnect the sampling capacitance from the input signal while in the hold state. The switch controller may control…
EXPONENTIAL ROM TABLE TUNING USING TRIM FOR FREQUENCY AGILE ANALOG FILTERS
Granted: September 10, 2015
Application Number:
20150256142
A tunable and trimmable analog filter may include a tunable analog filter and a trimming circuit. The tunable analog filter may set the frequency of a characteristic of the tunable analog filter based on a digital tuning signal that is indicative of a desired frequency of the characteristic. However, the tunable analog filter may contain components having values that deviate from specified values due to variations during manufacture of the tunable analog filter. The value deviations can…
PREDICTIVE AND REACTIVE CONTROL OF SECONDARY SIDE SYNCHRONOUS RECTIFIERS IN FORWARD CONVERTERS
Granted: July 23, 2015
Application Number:
20150207423
A forward converter has a primary side containing a PWM controller for controlling switching of a power switch and has a secondary side coupled to the primary side via a transformer. The secondary side includes a forward transistor and a catch transistor. A secondary side switch controller controls switching of the forward transistor and the catch transistor without communication from the primary side. The secondary side switch controller detects the rising and falling of the voltages at…
PRE-CHARGING INDUCTOR IN SWITCHING CONVERTER TO ACHIEVE HIGH PWM DIMMING RATIO IN LED DRIVERS
Granted: May 28, 2015
Application Number:
20150145439
In a method for controlling a current regulator for dimming an LED load, a dimming signal has a duty cycle that controls the LED ON-time and LED OFF time at a fixed frequency. The regulator is controlled by the dimming signal to only supply current to the LED load during the LED ON-time. The regulator includes an inductor. The inductor current at the end of an ON-time is detected and its value is stored. During the OFF-time, the inductor is pre-charged to the current level matching the…
ISOLATED BOOTSTRAPPED SWITCH
Granted: April 23, 2015
Application Number:
20150109161
A bootstrapped switch circuit capable of operating at input signals from far below the negative supply rail to far beyond the positive supply rail may include (a) a switch having a first terminal coupled to an input terminal, a second terminal coupled to an output terminal, and a control terminal; (b) a charge pump coupled to one or more clock signals and isolated from a timing circuit via a first capacitor and a second capacitor, the charge pump generating an output voltage; and (c) a…
ACCURATE CURRENT SENSING IN H-BRIDGE APPLICATIONS WITHOUT AMPLIFIER HAVING HIGH COMMON MODE REJECTION RATIO
Granted: February 19, 2015
Application Number:
20150048770
A current sensing circuit may include a shunt resistance through which current to be sensed travels. A first and a second differential amplifier may each provide an amplified output of the voltage across the shunt resistance. A switching system may deliver a current sensing signal output based on the amplified output of the first differential amplifier when the common mode voltage across the shunt resistance is low and based on the amplified output of the second differential amplifier…
POWER SUPPLY SYSTEM AND METHOD
Granted: January 22, 2015
Application Number:
20150021987
A power control system includes an event data bus configured to carry event information. Several power supply managers are coupled to the same event bus. Each power supply manager has one or more point of load (POL) regulators assigned to it. Each power supply manager communicates event information with other POL power supply managers over the event data bus.
PD IN POE SYSTEM HAVING REDUNDANT PSE CHANNEL INPUTS
Granted: January 15, 2015
Application Number:
20150019884
A Powered Device (PD) in a PoE system has two input channels, each being coupled to a separate Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) for increased reliability. A first PD controller is coupled to the first channel to perform hand-shaking and closes a first Power Good (PWRGD) switch when the PoE voltage is detected on the first channel. A second PD controller is coupled to the second channel to perform hand-shaking and closes a second PWRGD switch when the PoE voltage is detected on the second…
POWER OVER ETHERNET ON DATA PAIRS AND SPARE PAIRS
Granted: December 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140372773
Power Sourcing Equipment (PSE) provides a PoE supply voltage over data wires to a Powered Device (PD). A PSE controller controls a first FET that couples the PoE voltage to the data wire pairs and controls a second FET that couples the data wire pairs to the spare wire pairs. Upon powering up, the PSE controller keeps the two FETs open and performs a detection routine on any devices connected to the data pairs and spare pairs. If a PoE-compatible PD is detected as being coupled to the…
RESOLUTION-BOOSTED SIGMA DELTA ANALOG-TO-DIGITAL CONVERTER
Granted: November 20, 2014
Application Number:
20140340248
A method and an ADC circuit use multiple SD modulations on an analog value and apply digital post-processing of the pulse density modulation (PDM) streams from the SD modulations obtaining a higher resolution in the digital output value for a given oversampling ratio. SD ADC does not face the constraint of conversion time doubling for each additional bit of resolution. In one implementation, an SD ADC includes conversions in SD phase and a resolution-boosting phase. During SD phase, MSBs…
OUTPUT STAGE WITH FAST FEEDBACK FOR DRIVING ADC
Granted: September 18, 2014
Application Number:
20140266840
A driver for an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) has an overall feedback loop between its input and its output for maintaining overall accuracy, and a much faster feedback loop in its output stage that quickly compensates for output transients before the overall feedback loop can substantially react to the transients. Output voltage transients are created by the intermittent capacitive load of the ADC. The fast feedback loop can be made very fast since there are only a few components in…
