Patents Examined by Thuan Do
  • Patent number: 9947088
    Abstract: An object of the present invention is to provide an evaluation condition setting method and an evaluation condition setting apparatus of a semiconductor device which can select an appropriate evaluation pattern for exposure condition management with high accuracy. In order to solve the object, the present invention proposes an evaluation condition setting method or an evaluation condition setting apparatus which excludes a pattern corresponding to a process window chart defining a process window range smaller than a predetermined process window range from a measurement target, in a plurality of the process window charts which are obtained based on scanning of a charged particle beam with respect to another pattern formed on a sample.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 17, 2018
    Assignee: Hitachi High-Technologies Corporation
    Inventors: Hiroyuki Sindo, Kaoru Fukaya
  • Patent number: 9948132
    Abstract: Provided are a wireless charging method and a wireless charging apparatus for a handheld mobile terminal. The method includes: detecting a state of an earphone cord of the handheld mobile terminal in real time (S101); when it is detected that the earphone cord is in the to-be-charged twisted state, connecting the earphone cord, as an electricity receiving coil, to a charging apparatus (S102); after the earphone cord is connected as the electricity receiving coil to the charging apparatus, placing the handheld mobile terminal on or near a charging plate provided with an electricity transmitting coil to enable electromagnetic coupling (S103); and obtaining electric energy, by the handheld mobile terminal, through the electromagnetic coupling between the electricity transmitting coil and the electricity receiving coil, to wirelessly charge a battery of the handheld mobile terminal (S104). Convenience can be brought to a user and the user experience can be improved.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 9, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 17, 2018
    Assignee: ZTE CORPORATION
    Inventor: Jingxiao Liang
  • Patent number: 9940417
    Abstract: Embodiments herein describe a digital simulation environment that changes the delay of a digital signal to represent different analog reference voltages. For example, changing the length of time the digital signal is at the logical one state versus the time the digital signal is at the logical zero state may represent an analog reference voltage that is below or above an optimal value. Put differently, the digital simulation environment can insert unequal delay shifts relative to the logical one and zero states of the digital signal to represent different analog voltages. Using these unequal delay shifts, a digital simulation system can test the simulated operation of logic representing a physical system that uses an analog reference voltage as an input to determine if the logic behaves as expected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 21, 2016
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2018
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: John S. Bialas, Jr., Siva Pr. Boosa, Stephen P. Glancy, Yelena M. Tsyrkina
  • Patent number: 9940427
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method for improving a lithographic process for imaging a portion of a design layout onto a substrate using a lithographic projection apparatus comprising an illumination source and projection optics, the method including computing a multi-variable cost function of a plurality of design variables that are characteristics of the lithographic process, at least some of the design variables being characteristics of the illumination source and the design layout, the computing of the multi-variable cost function accounting for lens heating effects; and reconfiguring the characteristics of the lithographic process by adjusting the design variables until a predefined termination condition is satisfied.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 29, 2013
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2018
    Assignee: ASML NETHERLANDS B.V.
    Inventors: Michael Matthew M. Crouse, Youri Johannes Laurentius Maria Van Dommelen, Peng Liu, Hua-Yu Liu, Aiqin Jiang, Wenjin Huang
  • Patent number: 9925887
    Abstract: The present disclosure provides systems and methods for enabling fast charging of an electric vehicle at a charging station. In one embodiment, an electric vehicle in positioned in a given location for charging and/or discharging. A charging arm comprising a plurality of charging brushes is then positioned relative to the position of the electric vehicle. The plurality of charging brushes on the charging arm is positioned to contact a charging interface of the electric vehicle. The charging brushes are moved relative to the charging interface such that a portion of the charging brushes is removed as a result of the movement.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 13, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2018
    Assignee: Proterra Inc.
    Inventors: Seamus McGrath, Reuben Sarkar, Keyur Shah
  • Patent number: 9929579
    Abstract: A method and an apparatus for controlling charging of a low voltage battery are provided. The method includes determining a consumption pattern of an auxiliary machinery based on a consumed power of the auxiliary machinery and setting a base charged voltage based on the consumption pattern of the auxiliary machinery. Further, a charged voltage is set for the low voltage battery based on the base charged voltage, a driving mode of a vehicle, and a state of charge of a high voltage battery.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2018
    Assignee: Hyundai Motor Company
    Inventors: Kyu Il Lee, Ji Tae Kim, Boung Ho Min
  • Patent number: 9929586
    Abstract: A battery pack having a power-supply terminal, a ground terminal, and a communication terminal includes: a secondary battery that is connected to the power-supply terminal and the ground terminal; a resistive element that is connected to the communication terminal and the ground terminal; a switch unit that is connected in parallel to the resistive element and that is connected to the communication terminal and the ground terminal; and a controller that performs control of switching an ON state and an OFF state of a switch of the switch unit. The battery pack may further include a non-contact charging unit that performs non-contact charging, the resistive element may be a temperature sensor, and the controller may switch the switch of the switch unit to the ON state when the non-contact charging is started by the non-contact charging unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 28, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2018
    Assignee: KYOCERA CORPORATION
    Inventor: Yoshiyuki Shinoda
  • Patent number: 9923397
    Abstract: A battery pack includes a battery coupled between a first terminal and a second terminal and a battery manager configured to sense a state of charge of the battery; a load circuit coupled between the first terminal and the second terminal and configured to receive discharge power from the battery; a power generator coupled between the first terminal and the second terminal and configured to supply charge power to the battery; and a controller configured to control the battery pack and the power generator and to force discharging of the battery to make the state of charge of the battery equal to a reference value when a signal to initiate self-discharging is received from a user.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 18, 2014
    Date of Patent: March 20, 2018
    Assignee: Samsung SDI Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Ria Ju, Eui-Hwan Song
  • Patent number: 9916414
    Abstract: An apparatus for generating a test case includes a constrained description generator configured to define a plurality of constrained verification spaces in a total verification space, and generate a constrained description for each of the plurality of constrained verification spaces; and a test case generator configured to generate a test case using the constrained description.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 13, 2018
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Seong-Hoon Jeong, Moo-Kyoung Chung, Young-Chul Cho, Hee-Jun Shim, Jin-Sae Jung, Yen-Jo Han
  • Patent number: 9912188
    Abstract: The invention is based on a charging device, in particular for a hand tool accumulator (12), with at least one inductive voltage source (14) that is provided for supplying a charging current and comprises a first AC voltage connection point (16) and at least one further AC voltage connection point (18), with an inverter (20) comprising at least one power output (22) and at least one inverter element (24) which is electrically connected to the first AC voltage connection point (16), and with a signal transfer unit (26). It is proposed that the signal transfer unit (26) is provided for short-circuiting the at least two AC voltage connection points (16, 18) to generate a signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 25, 2015
    Date of Patent: March 6, 2018
    Assignee: Robert Bosch GmbH
    Inventor: Guenter Lohr
  • Patent number: 9904753
    Abstract: A method of designing a layout of a semiconductor device includes preparing a layout for a semiconductor integrated circuit, the preparing of the layout including providing lower and upper metal patterns and via patterns, which are vertically interposed between the lower and upper metal patterns, performing a retargeting process on the lower and upper metal patterns, classifying the via patterns to extract at least one risk via from the via patterns and changing a position of the risk via. During the changing of the position of the risk via, all of the via patterns, other than the risk via, are unchanged in position thereof. Related systems and computer program products are disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 8, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 27, 2018
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Byung-Moo Kim, Seung Weon Paek
  • Patent number: 9899852
    Abstract: A power bank charging system is provided and includes a power pin and a data transmission pin through which a charging current is provided to a power bank device, so as to increase a total charging current of the power bank device and thus shorten a charging time of the power bank device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 27, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 20, 2018
    Assignee: Getac Technology Corporation
    Inventor: Ta-Sung Hsiung
  • Patent number: 9892010
    Abstract: Embodiments relate to pre-silicon device testing using a persistent command table. An aspect includes receiving a value for a persistent command parameter from a user. Another aspect includes determining whether the value of the persistent command parameter is greater than zero. Another aspect includes based on determining whether the value of the persistent command parameter is greater than zero, selecting a number of commands equal to the value of the persistent command parameter from a regular command table of a driver of a device under test. Another aspect includes adding the selected commands to the persistent command table of the driver. Another aspect includes performing testing of the device under test via the driver using only commands that are in the persistent command table of the driver.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 11, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 13, 2018
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Dean G. Bair, Rebecca M. Gott, Edward J. Kaminski, Jr., William J. Lewis, Chakrapani Rayadurgam
  • Patent number: 9886539
    Abstract: A method for designing a circuit. The method may include obtaining a register-transfer level (RTL) file for an integrated circuit. The method may further include generating, using an RTL-Synthesis compiler and from the RTL file, a gate-level netlist including a plurality of cells for the integrated circuit. The method may further include determining, using a cross-probe criterion, an amount of cross-correlation between a first cell and a second cell in the gate-level netlist. The method may further include generating, in response to the amount of cross-correlation exceeding a correlation threshold, a cell group including the first cell and the second cell. The method may further include determining a boundary condition for the cell group. The method may further include generating a floorplan. The first cell and the second cell may be placed in the floorplan according to the boundary condition.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 14, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2018
    Assignee: ORACLE INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION
    Inventors: Mani Viswanath, Thomas Mitchell
  • Patent number: 9886537
    Abstract: A storage device stores first information indicating a first consumption current value during operation of a first partial circuit included in a circuit under design and second information indicating a surplus current value based on an allowable current value of a power source terminal of a second partial circuit and a second consumption current value during operation of the second partial circuit. A design support apparatus compares the surplus current value and the first consumption current value. When determining that the surplus current value is the first consumption current value or greater, the design support apparatus controls a layout apparatus to generate circuit information for a circuit under design where a power-supplying terminal of the second partial circuit and a power source terminal of the first partial circuit are connected.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2018
    Assignee: SOCIONEXT INC.
    Inventor: Kenichi Nomura
  • Patent number: 9881116
    Abstract: A restricted region transform method and a restricted region transform device are disclosed. The method includes following steps: reading out bare board information of a printed circuit board and layout information of a plurality of components, wherein the layout information of the plurality of components corresponds to a plurality of physical restricted regions; setting a first region according to edge information in the bare board information; setting a plurality of second regions according to projections of the plurality of physical restricted regions on a surface of the printed circuit board; selecting every two second regions, which overlap each other, among the plurality of second regions, and the selected second regions constituting a restriction conflict set; and selectively amending the second regions in the restriction conflict set to remove one or more overlaps from the second regions in the restriction conflict set.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2018
    Assignees: INVENTEC (PUDONG) TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION, INVENTEC CORPORATION
    Inventors: Cheng-Hsin Chen, Chun-Hong Lin, Chun-Chieh Chen, Cheng-Hsiang Huang
  • Patent number: 9875329
    Abstract: A host system for transferring data to a target system is provided. The host system may include a layout database for storing mask layout data representing an integrated circuit (IC) in terms of planar geometric shapes. The hosts system may further include a processor configured to import the mask layout data from the layout database to a memory-mapped disk in the host system. The processor is further configured to translate the mask layout data into one or more cell views according to a table hierarchy in the memory-mapped disk. The processor is further configured to transmit the one or more cell views from the memory-mapped disk to a magnetic disk of the target system.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 29, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2018
    Assignee: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
    Inventors: Sunil Todi, Amit Khurana, Chandra Manglani
  • Patent number: 9873343
    Abstract: A power storage system having a power storage device configured to be charged and discharged, a boost circuit and a controller, and a method of controlling the temperature of the power storage device are provided. The boost circuit includes a reactor and switching devices, and boosts the output voltage of the power storage device when the switching devices are driven. The controller alternately performs a charging operation to supply electric power from an external power supply to the power storage device, and a temperature elevating operation to warm up the power storage device, using ripple current generated when the switching devices are driven.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2018
    Assignee: TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA
    Inventor: Takashi Murata
  • Patent number: 9858371
    Abstract: A method for generating a minimized combined scenario for use in simulation, from a post-silicon validation test that includes a combined scenario, may include obtaining a failed scenario loop of a scenario of the combined scenario that includes combined action scenarios that were executed in loops during a post-silicon validation test of a system on chip; and adding any loops of other scenarios of the combined scenario that were executed at least partially concurrently with the failed scenario loop, while discarding any loops of other scenarios of the combined scenario that were completed during the post-silicon validation test before the failed scenario loop or did not commence before the failed scenario loop was completed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 9, 2016
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2018
    Assignee: Cadence Design Systems, Inc.
    Inventor: Meir Ovadia
  • Patent number: 9853471
    Abstract: Described is an apparatus for extending cycle-life of a battery cell, where the apparatus comprises: a monitor to monitor a rate of degradation of a battery cell overtime; a comparator to compare the rate of degradation with a threshold; and logic to adjust one or more charge parameters of the battery cell when the rate of degradation crosses the threshold. Described is a method which comprises: monitoring a rate of degradation of a battery cell overtime; comparing the rate of degradation with a threshold; and adjusting one or more charge parameters of the battery cell when the rate of degradation crosses the threshold. Described is a machine-readable storage media having machine executable instructions stored thereon that, when executed, causes one or more processors to perform the method described above.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 16, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2017
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventor: Andrew Keates