Patents by Inventor Liming Xiu

Liming Xiu has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 8929467
    Abstract: A one-wire communication bus for transferring a sequence of digital data from a transmitter to a receiver includes (a) an ECDD signal modulation circuit to create an electrical pulse train wherein each pulse's edge is used as clock signal and each pulse's duty cycle is used to represent digital value of zero and one; (b) an ECDD signal demodulation circuit to receive the ECDD pulse train using a group of sampling cells and to decode the sampled results using a majority voting circuit; (c) an electrical connection between a transmitter wherein the ECDD signal modulation circuit resides and a receiver wherein the ECDD signal demodulation circuit resides. Said ECDD signal is sent from the transmitter to the receiver through the electrical connection. Methods of creating the ECDD pulse train in the transmitter and decoding the ECDD pulse train in the receiver are also disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 13, 2014
    Date of Patent: January 6, 2015
    Inventor: Liming Xiu
  • Patent number: 8890591
    Abstract: A Time-Average-Frequency direct period synthesizer is used to improve crystal-less frequency generator's frequency stability. It includes (a) a temperature sensor circuit to compensate temperature-induced frequency instability; (b) a voltage sensor circuit to compensate voltage-induced frequency instability; (c) a calibration circuit to correct manufacture-related frequency error; (d) a frequency control word update circuit to receive the temperature- and voltage-related frequency adjustments, and the calibration-related adjustment, to generate the corresponding frequency control word in a predetermined schedule; (f) a Time-Average-Frequency direct period synthesizer to receive said frequency control word in the predetermined schedule and produce a clock signal with a frequency that is stable and accurate by counteracting the frequency variation caused by crystal-less oscillators' temperature and voltage dependence and correcting the frequency error introduced in manufacture process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 24, 2013
    Date of Patent: November 18, 2014
    Inventor: Liming Xiu
  • Patent number: 8830096
    Abstract: A method of reducing a water-wave noise for an analog to digital conversion includes performing sampling on an analog input signal; determining whether the analog input signal is interfered with by a periodic noise such that a water wave is generated; and executing one or both of the following steps when the analog input signal is interfered with by the periodic noise: adjusting a sampling frequency of the ADC, and adjusting a noise frequency of the periodic noise.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 2013
    Date of Patent: September 9, 2014
    Assignee: NOVATEK Microelectronics Corp.
    Inventors: Po-Chin Hu, Liming Xiu
  • Publication number: 20140197867
    Abstract: An open loop clock divider circuit includes (a) a first divider configured to receive an incoming clock signal and output a first divided clock signal, (b) a flying-adder synthesizer configured to fractionally divide the first divided clock signal and output a fractionally divided clock signal, and (c) a second divider configured to receive the fractionally divided clock signal and output a second divided clock signal. The open loop clock divider circuit advantageously provides a fractional divider in which there is no feedback loop between the source frequency (fs) and the destination frequency (fd). Methods of generating a divided clock signal involving the open loop clock divider circuit are also disclosed.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 14, 2013
    Publication date: July 17, 2014
    Inventor: Liming XIU
  • Publication number: 20140118173
    Abstract: A method of reducing a water-wave noise for an analog to digital conversion includes performing sampling on an analog input signal; determining whether the analog input signal is interfered with by a periodic noise such that a water wave is generated; and executing one or both of the following steps when the analog input signal is interfered with by the periodic noise: adjusting a sampling frequency of the ADC, and adjusting a noise frequency of the periodic noise.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 5, 2013
    Publication date: May 1, 2014
    Applicant: NOVATEK MICROELECTRONICS CORP.
    Inventors: Po-Chin Hu, LIMING XIU
  • Publication number: 20140093015
    Abstract: A clock data recovery circuit includes a binary phase detector configured to receive an incoming data signal and a recovered clock, and output a phase offset signal and recovered data; a digital loop control circuit configured to receive the phase offset signal and output a control signal; and a digital frequency generator configured to receive the control signal and output the recovered clock. A method of clock recovery includes generating a digital phase offset signal from incoming data and feedback clock signals; generating a clock frequency control signal from the phase offset signal; generating a recovered clock in response to the control signal; slowing down the recovered clock when the digital phase offset signal has a first binary state; speeding up the recovered clock when the digital phase offset signal has a second binary state; and holding the recovered clock when the digital phase offset signal has a third binary state.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 28, 2012
    Publication date: April 3, 2014
    Inventor: Liming XIU
  • Patent number: 8664988
    Abstract: A phase locked loop including a flying-adder divider circuit configured to receive phases of a periodic signal from a frequency generator and output a feedback signal to a phase detector, and a method of generating a periodic signal using such a flying-adder circuit, are disclosed. The flying-adder divider circuit generally includes a flying-adder and one or two divide-by-N dividers. The flying-adder receives K phases of the periodic signal, where K is an integer of at least 2, and generates a divided periodic signal from the K phases. The phase locked loop may include flying-adder divider circuits inside and/or outside the loop.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 14, 2012
    Date of Patent: March 4, 2014
    Assignee: Kairos Microsystems Corporation
    Inventor: Liming Xiu
  • Publication number: 20120229171
    Abstract: One of the advantages of direct frequency synthesis technique (e.g., flying-adder architecture) is its capability of generating arbitrary frequency by utilizing the time-average-frequency concept. In the clock output of the direct frequency synthesizer, instead of one type of cycle, there are two types of cycles. Unlike the conventional one-type-cycle clock wherein clock energy is concentrated at its designed frequency, Time-Average-Frequency based clock spreads some of its energy into spurious tones, which could be harmful to certain applications. The spurious tones are caused by the periodic carry sequence generated from a fractional part accumulator inside the frequency synthesizer. The invention suggests a method and an apparatus to break this periodicity and convert the spurious tones into broadband noise.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 6, 2012
    Publication date: September 13, 2012
    Applicant: Novatek Microelectronics Corp.
    Inventors: Liming Xiu, Ming-Chieh Lin
  • Patent number: 8258834
    Abstract: A lock detector for a phase lock loop (PLL) includes: first and second pulse width extenders, performing pulse width extension on first and second pulses for generating third and fourth pulses, respectively; first and second delay circuits, delaying the third and the fourth pulses into first and second sampling clocks, respectively; and a cross-sampling circuit, sampling the third pulse based on the second sampling clock and sampling the fourth pulse based on the first sampling clock to indicate whether the PLL is locked.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2010
    Date of Patent: September 4, 2012
    Assignee: Novatek Microelectronics Corp.
    Inventor: Liming Xiu
  • Patent number: 8195972
    Abstract: Synchronous circuitry for processing digital data in which the data are filtered to compensate for expected jitter in time-average frequency clock signals. Time-average frequency synthesis circuitry generates internal clock signals of a desired frequency, for example as based on a recovered clock signal from an input data stream, in a manner in which not all periods of the clock signal are of uniform duration. A jitter precorrection filter is inserted into the data path to apply a variable delay to pre-correct for distortion caused by jitter in the clock cycle. In embodiments of the invention using a flying-adder architecture to generate the clock signal, coefficients of the digital filer realizing the jitter precorrection filter are calculated according to the currently-selected oscillator phase and according to a fractional portion of a digital frequency control word.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 1, 2009
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Karl Renner, Walter Heinrich Demmer, Liming Xiu
  • Patent number: 8165199
    Abstract: This invention uses a flying adder frequency synthesis circuit to provide the required frequency adjustments to accommodate the varying encoding density of a MPEG2 video data stream. This invention adjusts the local clock based on the information extracted from the program clock reference signal in the incoming data. This invention replaces an external or internal voltage-controlled crystal oscillator using a phase locked loop circuit on the video processing integrated circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 20, 2008
    Date of Patent: April 24, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Liming Xiu, Grady Cook, Daniel Dudek, Hongbing Lian, Yihe Hu, Christopher S. Tracy
  • Patent number: 8120389
    Abstract: To make Flying-Adder architecture even more powerful, a new concept, time-average-frequency, is incorporated into the clock generation circuitry. This is a fundamental breakthrough since it attacks the clock generation problem from its root: how is the clock signal used in real systems? By investigating from this direction, a much more powerful architecture, fixed-VCO-Flying-Adder architecture, is created. Furthermore, based on fixed-VCO-Flying-Adder frequency synthesizer and time-average-frequency, a new type of component called Digital-to-Frequency Converter (DFC) is born.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2009
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2012
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventor: Liming Xiu
  • Publication number: 20110285439
    Abstract: To make Flying-Adder architecture even more powerful, a new concept, time-average-frequency, is incorporated into the clock generation circuitry. This is a fundamental breakthrough since it attacks the clock generation problem from its root: how is the clock signal used in real systems? By investigating from this direction, a much more powerful architecture, fixed-VCO-Flying-Adder architecture, is created. Furthermore, based on fixed-VCO-Flying-Adder frequency synthesizer and time-average-frequency, a new type of component called Digital-to-Frequency Converter (DFC) is born.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 5, 2009
    Publication date: November 24, 2011
    Applicant: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventor: Liming Xiu
  • Publication number: 20110254601
    Abstract: A lock detector for a phase lock loop (PLL) includes: first and second pulse width extenders, performing pulse width extension on first and second pulses for generating third and fourth pulses, respectively; first and second delay circuits, delaying the third and the fourth pulses into first and second sampling clocks, respectively; and a cross-sampling circuit, sampling the third pulse based on the second sampling clock and sampling the fourth pulse based on the first sampling clock to indicate whether the PLL is locked.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 24, 2010
    Publication date: October 20, 2011
    Applicant: NOVATEK MICROELECTRONICS CORP.
    Inventor: Liming Xiu
  • Publication number: 20110238721
    Abstract: A Xiu-accumulator circuit including N cascaded adders is provided. Each adder includes two registers, wherein one register stores an addition result information and the other register stores a carry-in information. Respective addition result information from respective adder is further fed back to itself for accumulation. The carry-in information outputted from a previous stage adder is fed to a next stage adder at a next clock cycle. After N clock cycles, the carry-in information outputted from the first stage adder is fed to the last stage adder.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 28, 2010
    Publication date: September 29, 2011
    Applicant: NOVATEK MICROELECTRONICS CORP.
    Inventor: Liming XIU
  • Patent number: 7995144
    Abstract: A digital video system (2) is disclosed, in which an analog input video signal is sampled at an optimum sample phase (Pnc), and converted to a digital datastream for display. A phase-locked loop (12) generates a plurality of sample clock phases. One of the sample clock phases (Pnc) is applied to an analog-to-digital converter (10), which digitizes the analog input video signal accordingly. Phase alignment circuitry (20) is provided that includes three sample-and-hold circuits (22b, 22c, 22a) that sample the analog input video signal, in parallel with the analog-to-digital converter (10), at times before, at, and after the current sample clock phase used by the analog-to-digital converter (10). The earlier and later sampled voltages are compared against the current sampled voltages to generate difference voltages that are each compared against a threshold voltage (Vthr).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 12, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 9, 2011
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Steven D. Clynes, Liming Xiu
  • Publication number: 20110131439
    Abstract: Synchronous circuitry for processing digital data in which the data are filtered to compensate for expected jitter in time-average frequency clock signals. Time-average frequency synthesis circuitry generates internal clock signals of a desired frequency, for example as based on a recovered clock signal from an input data stream, in a manner in which not all periods of the clock signal are of uniform duration. A jitter precorrection filter is inserted into the data path to apply a variable delay to pre-correct for distortion caused by jitter in the clock cycle. In embodiments of the invention using a flying-adder architecture to generate the clock signal, coefficients of the digital filer realizing the jitter precorrection filter are calculated according to the currently-selected oscillator phase and according to a fractional portion of a digital frequency control word.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 1, 2009
    Publication date: June 2, 2011
    Applicant: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Karl Renner, Walter Heinrich Demmer, Liming Xiu
  • Patent number: 7702708
    Abstract: An apparatus employing control words to present a synthesized output signal having an output frequency and a delay with respect to an input signal includes: (a) A multiplexer receiving the input signal and having an output and an address input. (b) An output unit generates the output signal in response to a drive signal from the multiplexer. (c) A first register coupled with the multiplexer output. (d) A second register coupled with the multiplexer and the first register. The first register responds to a multiplexer output signal to provide a first control signal to the second register based upon the control words. The second register responds to the multiplexer output signal to provide a second control signal to the address input based upon the first control signal and the control words. The multiplexer presents the drive signal in response to the second control signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 7, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 20, 2010
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Gonggui Xu, Haydar Bilhan, Liming Xiu
  • Publication number: 20090161809
    Abstract: A method and apparatus for adjusting to a frame rate. The method displays the video frames with varying rates. The method comprising the steps of detecting a change in the frame rate, calculating the FREQ of the frame, adjusting the phase-locked loop utilizing the calculated FREQ, and utilizing the adjusted phase-locked loop output as the pixel clock to display the frame.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 17, 2008
    Publication date: June 25, 2009
    Applicant: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Liming Xiu, Hongbing Lian, Grady Cook, Christopher Sean Tracy, Wen Li
  • Publication number: 20090160493
    Abstract: A circuit for, and method of, generating a spread-spectrum clock signal. In one embodiment, the circuit includes: (a) a modulator configured to generate a modulated control value, and (b) a frequency synthesizer coupled to the modulator and configured to generate a spread-spectrum clock signal based on a variation of the modulated control value, the frequency synthesizer having a directly-derivable frequency response output.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2007
    Publication date: June 25, 2009
    Applicant: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Zhihong You, Liming Xiu