Patents by Inventor Ming Fang

Ming Fang 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: 11422146
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that advantageously measure wind speed at utility poles that support fiber optic cables and—in many applications—electrical and/or other communications cables (i.e., cable television).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2021
    Date of Patent: August 23, 2022
    Inventors: Ming-Fang Huang, Ting Wang
  • Patent number: 11416666
    Abstract: A method for forming an integrated circuit (IC) is provided. The method includes obtaining an IC design; generating a layout according to the IC design; calculating a score of a region in the layout based on voltage levels in the region; and fabricating a semiconductor device according to the layout when the score of the region in the layout is equal to or less than a threshold value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 4, 2021
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2022
    Assignee: TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD.
    Inventors: Ming-Fang Lai, Guan-Yu Chen, Yi-Feng Chang
  • Patent number: 11418025
    Abstract: A device is disclosed herein. The device includes an electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection switch and an ESD driver. The ESD driver is configured to receive a first voltage and a second voltage. When a voltage difference between the first voltage and the second voltage is higher than a first voltage threshold, the ESD driver outputs a first trigger signal to turn on the ESD protection switch. When the voltage difference between the first voltage and the second voltage is lower than a second voltage threshold, the ESD driver outputs a second trigger signal to turn on the ESD protection switch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2020
    Date of Patent: August 16, 2022
    Assignees: TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD., TSMC CHINA COMPANY LIMITED
    Inventors: Hang Fan, Ming-Fang Lai, Shui-Ming Cheng
  • Publication number: 20220230539
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe DFOS systems, methods, and structures that advantageously extract road traffic from DFOS vibration patterns such that anomaly detection is possible. Sensed vibration data is represented accurately as a set of points, where each point is denoted as a tuple with elements indicating a time stamp, a location along a length of a DFOS optical sensing cable, and vibration strength detected at the location at the time. Traffic pattern detection is based on a progressive probabilistic Hough transform (PPHT) that exploits global information from an entire spatial-temporal data snapshot to assess a cause of detected vibrations.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 13, 2022
    Publication date: July 21, 2022
    Applicant: NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA, INC
    Inventors: Shaobo HAN, Ming-Fang HUANG, Philip JI, Yueheng CHEN, Milad SALEMI
  • Publication number: 20220228948
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that advantageously extend DFOS techniques to anomaly detection using optical magnetism switches (OMC) that are integrated into the DFOS system.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 19, 2022
    Publication date: July 21, 2022
    Applicant: NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA, INC
    Inventors: Ming-Fang HUANG, Ting WANG
  • Publication number: 20220224109
    Abstract: An electrostatic discharge protection circuit includes an electrostatic discharge clamp between a first rail and a second rail, a trigger device configured to activate the electrostatic discharge clamp in response to an electrostatic discharge event, and a charge dissipation element between the first rail and the second rail to dissipate a residual charge at an input of the trigger device.
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 1, 2022
    Publication date: July 14, 2022
    Applicant: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
    Inventors: Ming-Fang Lai, Yi-Hsun Wu, Ching-Yun Chang
  • Patent number: 11387898
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe optical fiber sensing systems, methods and structures disclosing a distributed optical fiber sensor network constructed on a switched optical fiber telecommunications infrastructure to detect temperatures, acoustic effects, and vehicle traffic—among others—demonstrated with a number of different network topologies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2020
    Date of Patent: July 12, 2022
    Inventors: Ting Wang, Ming-Fang Huang, Yaowen Li, Philip Ji
  • Publication number: 20220196463
    Abstract: A fiber optic sensing technology for vehicle run-off-road incident automatic detection by an indicator of sonic alert pattern (SNAP) vibration patterns. A machine learning method is employed and trained and evaluated against a variety of heterogeneous factors using controlled experiments, demonstrating applicability for future field deployment. Extracted events resulting from operation of our system may be advantageously incorporated into existing management systems for intelligent transportation and smart city applications, facilitating real-time alleviation of traffic congestion and/or providing a quick response rescue and clearance operation.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2021
    Publication date: June 23, 2022
    Applicant: NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA, INC
    Inventors: Shaobo HAN, Yuheng CHEN, Ming-Fang HUANG, Tingfeng LI
  • Publication number: 20220196462
    Abstract: Distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods and structures for determining the proximity of vibration sources located perpendicular to a sensor fiber that is part of the DFOS system that may potentially threaten/damage or otherwise compromise the sensor fiber itself. Systems, methods, and structures according to aspects of the present disclosure employ Artificial Intelligence (AI) methodology(ies) that use as input a fundamental physical understanding of wave propagation and attenuation in the ground along with Bayesian inference and Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) techniques for estimating/determining the proximity of potentially damaging vibration sources to the optical sensor fiber.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2021
    Publication date: June 23, 2022
    Applicant: NEC Laboratories America, Inc.
    Inventors: Shaobo HAN, Ming-Fang HUANG, Yuheng CHEN, Milad SALEMI
  • Publication number: 20220196464
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe an unsupervised context encoder-based fiber sensing method that detects anomalous vibrations proximate to a sensor fiber that is part of a distributed fiber optic sensing system (DFOS) such that damage to the sensor fiber by activities producing and anomalous vibrations are preventable. Advantageously, our method requires only normal data streams and a machine learning based operation is utilized to analyze the sensing data and report abnormal events related to construction or other fiber-threatening activities in real-time. Our machine learning algorithm is based on waterfall image inpainting by context encoder and is self-trained in an end-to-end manner and extended every time the DFOS sensor fiber is optically connected to a new route. Accordingly, our inventive method and system it is much easier to deploy as compared to supervised methods of the prior art.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 20, 2021
    Publication date: June 23, 2022
    Applicant: NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA, INC
    Inventors: Shaobo HAN, Ming-Fang HUANG, Eric COSATTO
  • Publication number: 20220194963
    Abstract: Metal complexes including cyclopentadienyl ligands and methods of using such metal complexes to prepare metal-containing films are provided.
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 11, 2022
    Publication date: June 23, 2022
    Applicant: MERCK PATENT GMBH
    Inventors: Ming FANG, Joby ELDO, Charles DEZELAH, Daniel MOSER, Ravi KANJOLIA
  • Patent number: 11366231
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe systems, methods and structures for determining any location on a deployed fiber cable from an optical time domain reflectometry (OTDR) curve using a movable mechanical vibration source to stimulate tiny vibration of fiber in deployed fiber cable along the cable route and a fiber sensing system at a central office to detect the vibration(s). Latitude and longitude of the location(s) of the vibration source is measured with a GPS device and a dynamic-OTDR distance is measured at central office (CO) simultaneously. The collected GPS location data and corresponding dynamic-OTDR distance data are paired and saved into a database. This saved data may be processed to graphically overlie a map thereby providing exact cable location on the map thereby providing carriers/service providers the ability to improve fiber fault location on a deployed fiber cable much faster and more accurately than presently possible using methods available in the art.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2019
    Date of Patent: June 21, 2022
    Inventors: Ming-Fang Huang, Yuheng Chen, Ting Wang
  • Publication number: 20220136891
    Abstract: A device may receive, from a fiber sensor device, sensing data associated with a fiber optic cable, the sensing data being produced by an activity that poses a threat of damage to the fiber optic cable, and the sensing data identifying: amplitudes of vibration signals, frequencies of the vibration signals, patterns of the vibration signals, times associated with the vibration signals, and locations along the fiber optic cable associated with the vibration signals. The device may process, with a machine learning model, the sensing data to determine a threat level of the activity to the fiber optic cable, the machine learning model having been trained based on historical information regarding detected vibrations, historical information regarding sources of the detected vibrations, and historical information regarding threat levels to the fiber optic cable. The device may perform one or more actions based on the threat level to the fiber optic cable.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 3, 2020
    Publication date: May 5, 2022
    Applicants: Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc., NEC Laboratories America, Inc., NEC Corporation
    Inventors: Tiejun J. XIA, Glenn A. WELLBROCK, Ming-Fang HUANG, Ting WANG, Yoshiaki AONO
  • Publication number: 20220140599
    Abstract: A device is disclosed herein. The device includes an electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection switch and an ESD driver. The ESD driver is configured to receive a first voltage and a second voltage. When a voltage difference between the first voltage and the second voltage is higher than a first voltage threshold, the ESD driver outputs a first trigger signal to turn on the ESD protection switch. When the voltage difference between the first voltage and the second voltage is lower than a second voltage threshold, the ESD driver outputs a second trigger signal to turn on the ESD protection switch.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 23, 2020
    Publication date: May 5, 2022
    Applicants: TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING CO., LTD., TSMC CHINA COMPANY LIMITED
    Inventors: Hang FAN, Ming-Fang LAI, Shui-Ming CHENG
  • Patent number: 11312730
    Abstract: Metal complexes including cyclopentadienyl ligands and methods of using such metal complexes to prepare metal-containing films are provided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 3, 2017
    Date of Patent: April 26, 2022
    Assignee: MERCK PATENT GMBH
    Inventors: Ming Fang, Joby Eldo, Charles Dezelah, Daniel Moser, Ravi Kanjolia
  • Publication number: 20220114789
    Abstract: A virtual and real image fusion method is disclosed. The method comprises the following operations: obtaining a picture of a three dimensional space by a first camera, in which the picture comprises a screen picture and a tag picture of an entity tag and the screen picture is projected on the entity tag; obtaining a corresponding point data of the entity tag on the screen picture according to the picture by a processor; obtaining a spatial correction parameter according to the corresponding point data by the processor; and displaying an image on the screen picture according to the spatial correction parameter by the processor.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 13, 2021
    Publication date: April 14, 2022
    Inventors: Li-Ting CHEN, Ming-Fang WENG
  • Patent number: 11296502
    Abstract: An electrostatic discharge protection circuit includes an electrostatic discharge clamp between a first rail and a second rail, a trigger device configured to activate the electrostatic discharge clamp in response to an electrostatic discharge event, and a charge dissipation element between the first rail and the second rail to dissipate a residual charge at an input of the trigger device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2022
    Assignee: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited
    Inventors: Ming-Fang Lai, Yi-Hsun Wu, Ching-Yun Chang
  • Patent number: 11284173
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that advantageously utilize existing telecommunications facilities that serve as not only to convey telecommunications traffic—but as a sensor medium providing useful sensory information. In sharp contrast to the prior art—a DFOS system when so deployed may advantageously exploit network topologies and optical switches to provide novel sensing features including the detection of environmental events including acoustic, temperature, and vibrational events that may be indicative of societal activity including traffic and/or emergency events.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 4, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2022
    Inventors: Ming-Fang Huang, Ting Wang
  • Publication number: 20220087034
    Abstract: A method of manufacturing circuit board structure includes operations below. First, a first substrate is provided. A first wire structure is formed on the first substrate, in which the first wire structure includes a first wire having a first height and a second wire having a second height, and the first height is greater than the second height. A liquid crystal polymer layer is then formed on the first substrate and covers the first wire structure.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 9, 2021
    Publication date: March 17, 2022
    Inventors: Hung-Jung LEE, Shang-Ming FANG
  • Publication number: 20220065690
    Abstract: Aspects of the present disclosure describe distributed fiber optic sensing (DFOS) systems, methods, and structures that advantageously enable anomaly detection resulting from construction—or other activity based on image processing that may advantageously detect/notify/prevent damage to a fiber optic network infrastructure before such damage occurs.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 24, 2021
    Publication date: March 3, 2022
    Applicants: NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA, INC, NEC Corporation, Verizon Patent and Licensing Inc.
    Inventors: Shaobo HAN, Ming-Fang HUANG, Yuheng CHEN, Milad SALEMI, Ting WANG, Yoshiaki AONO, Glenn WELLBROCK, Tiejun XIA