Patents by Inventor Michael R. Foxcroft

Michael R. Foxcroft 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).

  • Publication number: 20160099677
    Abstract: A crystal oscillator achieves fast start-up by injecting an in-band periodic signal into the crystal oscillator driver circuit. The in-band periodic signal has a frequency that is within a bandwidth of the crystal oscillator. Injection of the in-band periodic signal begins in response to a power-up condition and stops after a predetermined time period corresponding to the amount of time it takes to ensure the crystal driver is achieving full swing.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 6, 2014
    Publication date: April 7, 2016
    Inventors: Saeed Abbasi, Jun Hong Zhao, Raymond S.P. Tam, James Lin, Michael R. Foxcroft
  • Patent number: 9041474
    Abstract: A phase locked loop (PLL) includes a first loop, a second loop, and a lock detector. The first loop locks a feedback signal having a frequency equal to a fraction of a frequency of an output signal to a reference signal in phase. The first loop has a first bandwidth. The second loop locks the feedback signal to the reference signal in frequency and has a second bandwidth. The first bandwidth is higher than the second bandwidth. The lock detector is coupled to the second loop and increases the second bandwidth in response to detecting that the feedback signal is not locked to the reference signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 30, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2015
    Assignees: ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC., ATI TECHNOLOGIES ULC
    Inventors: Saeed Abbasi, Nima Gilanpour, Michael R. Foxcroft, George A. W. Guthrie, Raymond S. P. Tam
  • Publication number: 20150061737
    Abstract: A phase locked loop (PLL) includes a first loop, a second loop, and a lock detector. The first loop locks a feedback signal having a frequency equal to a fraction of a frequency of an output signal to a reference signal in phase. The first loop has a first bandwidth. The second loop locks the feedback signal to the reference signal in frequency and has a second bandwidth. The first bandwidth is higher than the second bandwidth. The lock detector is coupled to the second loop and increases the second bandwidth in response to detecting that the feedback signal is not locked to the reference signal.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 30, 2013
    Publication date: March 5, 2015
    Applicants: ATI Technologies ULC, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Saeed Abbasi, Nima Gilanpour, Michael R. Foxcroft, George A. W. Guthrie, Raymond S. P. Tam
  • Patent number: 8724674
    Abstract: A device may generate a clock signal using spread-spectrum clocking. The spread-spectrum clocking may modulate a frequency of the clock signal to produce a plurality of frequencies for the clock signal during a modulation cycle. The device may receive an instruction to disable the spread-spectrum clocking, and may disable the spread spectrum clocking at the end of the modulation cycle.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 27, 2012
    Date of Patent: May 13, 2014
    Assignees: ATI Technologies ULC, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael R. Foxcroft, Shirley Pui Shan Lam, George A. W. Guthrie, Alexander Shternshain, Mihir Doctor, Krishna Sitaraman, Jeff Herman
  • Patent number: 8692594
    Abstract: A method and a phase-locked loop (PLL) for generating output clock signals with desired frequencies are described. The PLL is equipped with a ramp generator that increments or decrements a feedback divider value before providing it to a modulator. The modulator modulates the feedback divider value and provides the modulated value to a feedback divider of the PLL for performing frequency division.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 19, 2011
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2014
    Assignees: ATI Technologies ULC, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Michael R. Foxcroft, Shirley Pui Shan Lam, George A. W. Guthrie, Alexander Shternshain, Jeffrey Herman, Mihir S. Doctor, Krishna Sitaraman
  • Publication number: 20140029646
    Abstract: A device may generate a clock signal using spread-spectrum clocking. The spread-spectrum clocking may modulate a frequency of the clock signal to produce a plurality of frequencies for the clock signal during a modulation cycle. The device may receive an instruction to disable the spread-spectrum clocking, and may disable the spread spectrum clocking at the end of the modulation cycle.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 27, 2012
    Publication date: January 30, 2014
    Applicants: ATI TECHNOLOGIES ULC, ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC.
    Inventors: Michael R. FOXCROFT, Shirley Pui Shan LAM, George A.W. GUTHRIE, Alexander SHTERNSHAIN, Mihir DOCTOR, Krishna SITARAMAN, Jeff HERMAN
  • Patent number: 8610473
    Abstract: The loop bandwidth of a PLL is adjusted based on a difference between the output signal of the PLL and the PLL reference signal. In an embodiment, the DC open loop gain and natural frequency of the PLL are adjusted based on the phase difference between the output signal and the reference signal, so that the loop bandwidth of the PLL is increased when the phase difference is outside a programmable range and is decreased when the phase difference is within the programmable range.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 14, 2011
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2013
    Assignee: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
    Inventors: Saeed Abbasi, Michael R. Foxcroft, Thomas Y. Wong
  • Publication number: 20130154694
    Abstract: A method and a phase-locked loop (PLL) for generating output clock signals with desired frequencies are described. The PLL is equipped with a ramp generator that increments or decrements a feedback divider value before providing it to a modulator. The modulator modulates the feedback divider value and provides the modulated value to a feedback divider of the PLL for performing frequency division.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 19, 2011
    Publication date: June 20, 2013
    Applicants: ATI TECHNOLOGIES ULC, ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC.
    Inventors: Michael R. Foxcroft, Shirley Pui Shan Lam, George A. W. Guthrie, Alexander Shternshain, Jeffrey Herman, Mihir S. Doctor, Krishna Sitaraman
  • Publication number: 20130154695
    Abstract: Wafer sort data can be converted to binary data, whereby each integrated circuit of the wafer is assigned a value of one or zero, depending on whether test data indicates the integrated circuit complies with a specification. In addition, each integrated circuit is assigned position data to indicate its position on the wafer. A frequency transform, such as a multidimensional discrete Fourier transform (DFT), is applied to the binary wafer sort data and position data to determine a spatial frequency spectrum that indicates error patterns for the wafer. The spatial frequency spectrum can be analyzed to determine the characteristics of the wafer formation process that resulted in the errors, and the wafer formation process can be modified to reduce or eliminate the errors.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 14, 2011
    Publication date: June 20, 2013
    Applicants: ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC., ATI TECHNOLOGIES ULC
    Inventors: Saeed Abbasi, Michael R. Foxcroft, Thomas Y. Wong