Last gasp hold-up circuit using adaptive constant on time control
Granted: February 17, 2015
Patent Number:
8957655
A hold-up circuit coupled to a first node to receive an input voltage and to provide a hold-up voltage includes an inductor, a constant on-time buck-boost control circuit configured to drive a high-side power switch and a low-side power switch to operate in a buck mode and a boost mode of operation, and an energy storage capacitor. When the input voltage is greater than a predetermined threshold, the buck-boost control circuit is configured in the boost mode to drive the low-side power…
Adaptive pause time energy efficient ethernet PHY
Granted: January 27, 2015
Patent Number:
8942144
An energy efficient Ethernet physical layer (PHY) device including an EEE control module configured to generate a control signal to transition the PHY device into a low power consumption mode based an operating condition, and a pause frame generator module responsive to the control signals to generate a pause frame. The pause frame generator module is configured to send the pause frame to a media access control (MAC) device to reduce an incoming flow of data packets from the MAC device…
Two-phase charge-coupled device
Granted: January 20, 2015
Patent Number:
8937341
A charge-coupled unit formed in a semiconductor substrate and including an array of identical electrodes forming rows and columns, wherein: each electrode extends in a cavity with insulated walls formed of a groove, oriented along a row, dug into the substrate thickness, and including, at one of its ends, a protrusion extending towards at least one adjacent row.
Programmable high current voltage supply for automatic test equipment
Granted: December 30, 2014
Patent Number:
8922271
A voltage-current conversion circuit for automatic test equipment (ATE) or a tester converts a low voltage, low current output from a power supply of the tester to a high voltage and/or high current output to be coupled to a device under test (DUT) while maintaining the sense capability of the tester power supply. In some embodiments, the voltage-current conversion circuit is implemented as a current only conversion circuit.
Buck DC-DC converter with improved accuracy and stability
Granted: December 30, 2014
Patent Number:
8922187
A buck switching regulator includes a feedback control circuit including a balanced feedback network including first and second gain circuits configured to generate first and second feedback signals, respectively, indicative of the regulated output voltage; a ripple generation circuit configured to inject a first ripple signal to the first gain circuit and a second ripple signal to the second gain circuit; an operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) configured to receive the second…
Buck DC-DC converter with improved accuracy
Granted: November 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8890499
A buck switching regulator includes a feedback control circuit including a feedback network including first and second gain circuits configured to generate first and second feedback signals, respectively, indicative of the regulated output voltage; a ripple generation circuit configured to inject a ripple signal to the first gain circuit; an operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) configured to receive the second feedback signal and a reference signal and to generate an output…
LDMOS transistor with asymmetric spacer as gate
Granted: November 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8889518
The present invention provides a laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductor (LDMOS) transistor and a method for fabricating it. The LDMOS transistor includes an n-type epitaxial layer formed on a p-type substrate, and an asymmetric conductive spacer which acts as its gate. The LDMOS transistor also includes a source and a drain region on either side of the asymmetric conductive spacer, and a channel region formed by ion-implantation on the asymmetric conductive spacer. The height of…
Fluids exchanging system for medical use
Granted: November 11, 2014
Patent Number:
8882707
A fluids exchanging system for medical use is provided. The system comprises an infusion pumping system, an aspiration pump, and an implantable catheter comprising a perforated dialysis cavity communicating with infusion and aspiration tubes in a communicating vessel manner. The implantable catheter further includes elastic holes.
Multi-phase power block for a switching regulator for use with a single-phase PWM controller
Granted: November 4, 2014
Patent Number:
8878501
A multi-phase power block for a switching regulator includes a phase control circuit, N power cells and a current sharing control circuit. The phase control circuit is configured to receive a single phase PWM clock signal and generate N clock signals in N phases. Each of the N power cells includes a pair of power switches, gate drivers, a control circuit receiving one of the N clock signals and generating gate drive signals for the gate drivers, and an inductor. The current sharing…
Vertical differential resonator
Granted: November 4, 2014
Patent Number:
8878633
A micromechanical device includes a substrate, a micromechanical structure supported by the substrate and configured for overtone resonant vibration relative to the substrate, and a plurality of electrodes supported by the substrate and spaced from the micromechanical structure by respective gaps. The plurality of electrodes include multiple drive electrodes configured relative to the micromechanical structure to excite the overtone resonant vibration with a differential excitation…
Multi-level stack voltage system for integrated circuits
Granted: November 4, 2014
Patent Number:
8878387
An integrated circuit supplied by a rail-to-rail power supply voltage includes a multi-level stack voltage generator configured to partition the rail-to-rail power supply voltage into one or more reduced supply voltages each having a voltage value between positive and negative power supply voltages of the rail-to-rail power supply. The reduced supply voltages and the positive and negative power supply voltages being configured in series to form a stack of circuit layers. The integrated…
Split slot FET with embedded drain
Granted: November 4, 2014
Patent Number:
8878287
The present invention provides an FET which includes an epitaxial layer and first and second body regions formed over the epitaxial layer. Further, the FET includes a first trench formed in the epitaxial layer between the first and the second body regions. The FET also includes a conductive layer formed on the sidewall of the first trench. The conductive layer acts as gate of the FET. The FET also includes a second trench formed at the bottom of the first trench, a first dielectric layer…
PLL frequency synthesizer with multi-curve VCO implementing closed loop curve searching using charge pump current modulation
Granted: October 28, 2014
Patent Number:
8872556
A phase-locked loop circuit using a multi-curve voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) having a set of operating curves, each operating curve corresponding to a different frequency range over a control voltage range. The phase-locked loop circuit includes a phase and frequency detector driving a charge pump and a digital control circuit configured to generate a curve select signal using a closed loop curve search operation to select one of the operating curves in the multi-curve VCO, the…
Noise discriminator for passive optical network burst mode receiver
Granted: October 14, 2014
Patent Number:
8861584
A noise discriminator circuit and a noise discrimination method in a burst mode receiver is configured to determine the validity of an incoming burst signal by analyzing the timing of the signal edges of incoming signal to look for a time duration conforming to the preamble data bits of a valid burst signal. In one embodiment, the noise discriminator circuit and method analyze the time duration between signal edges of the same pulse of an incoming signal. In another embodiment, the noise…
Ethernet communication device with reduced EMI
Granted: July 8, 2014
Patent Number:
8774016
A network device includes a physical layer transceiver configured to receive incoming data on a data link at an input clock rate and to store the incoming data in a buffer. The physical layer transceiver includes a Media Independent Interface (MII) controller configured to receive the incoming data stored in the buffer and to transmit the incoming data over a MII bus based on a MII clock where the MII clock is a spread spectrum clock. The network device further includes a Media Access…
Buck-boost converter using timers for mode transition control
Granted: July 8, 2014
Patent Number:
8773084
A DC-to-DC, buck-boost voltage converter includes a duty cycle controller configured to generate control signals for a buck driver configured to drive first and second buck switching transistors at a buck duty cycle and to generate control signals for a boost driver configured to drive first and second boost switching transistors at a boost duty cycle. The duty cycle controller includes at least a duty cycle timer and an offset timer where the duty cycle controller applies the duty cycle…
High bandwidth PSRR power supply regulator
Granted: June 24, 2014
Patent Number:
8760131
A voltage regulator includes a power device formed by an NMOS transistor having a drain terminal coupled to an input voltage, a source terminal providing an output voltage and a gate terminal receiving a gate drive signal; and an integrated AC/DC control loop configured to access the output voltage and to generate the gate drive signal based on a value of the output voltage in relation to a first reference voltage and a second reference voltage. The AC control portion generates a gate…
Low leakage digital buffer using bootstrap inter-stage
Granted: June 3, 2014
Patent Number:
8742829
The present invention is a method and circuitry for driving a high-threshold MOS device on low input voltages. The invention includes a circuit that operates on a supply voltage that is less than the threshold voltage of the high-threshold MOS device. The circuit includes one or more low threshold MOS inverters and one or more capacitors that operate at low input voltages. The one or more low threshold MOS inverters operate in a manner that the one or more capacitors get charged to a…
Noise discriminator for enhanced noise detection in a passive optical network burst mode receiver
Granted: April 22, 2014
Patent Number:
8705608
A noise discriminator circuit and a noise discrimination method in a burst mode receiver is configured to determine the validity of an incoming burst signal by analyzing the timing of the signal edges of incoming signal to look for a time duration conforming to the preamble data bits of a valid burst signal. In one embodiment, the noise discriminator circuit and method analyze the time duration between signal edges of the same pulse of an incoming signal. In another embodiment, the noise…
Bias voltage tuning of MEMS resonator operation point
Granted: April 1, 2014
Patent Number:
8686802
A method of configuring a device comprising a MEMS resonator includes initiating operation of the device, estimating a first parameter of the MEMS resonator based on the initiated operation, the first parameter not varying with the bias voltage, monitoring the operation of the device at a plurality of levels of the bias voltage, calculating a second parameter of the MEMS resonator based on the monitored operation, the second parameter varying with the bias voltage, determining an…
