Abstract: A method, system and computer program provide a mechanism for intelligently synchronizing a portable video device with a digital video recorder. The intelligent synchronization handles conditions under which a complete transfer of difference content is not possible due to available storage limitations of the portable video device. The synchronization process determines a content difference between the content on the portable video device and the content on the DVR, determines available storage space on the portable video device and compares the available storage space on the portable video device to a size of the content difference. If the size of the content difference is greater than the available storage space, the size of the content difference is reduced, by compression or truncation, without completely excluding video programs from the transfer.

Abstract: A cascaded power converter having an auxiliary power supply operated from the second switching power stage provides efficient operation by activating the auxiliary power supply early in the startup process. A low energy transfer operating mode is initiated in the second switching power stage to charge the auxiliary power supply output without generating significant disruption at the load. After the first switching power stage is started and the intermediate node voltage has increased to a level sufficient to operate the second switching power stage, the final switching power stage enters a normal operating mode. The low energy transfer operating mode has a substantially reduced switching rate and pulse width from that of the normal operating mode.

Abstract: Processor time accounting is enhanced by per-thread internal resource usage counter circuits that account for usage of processor core resources to the threads that use them. Relative resource use can be determined by detecting events such as instruction dispatches for multiple threads active within the processor, which may include idle threads that are still occupying processor resources. The values of the resource usage counters are used periodically to determine relative usage of the processor core by the multiple threads. If all of the events are for a single thread during a given period, the processor time is allocated to the single thread. If no events occur in the given period, then the processor time can be equally allocated among threads. If multiple threads are generating events, a fractional resource usage can be determined for each thread and the counters may be updated in accordance with their fractional usage.

Abstract: A computer program product for controlling a storage device using per-element selectable power supply voltages provides energy conservation in storage devices while maintaining a particular performance level. The storage device is partitioned into multiple elements, which may be sub-arrays, rows, columns or individual storage cells. Each element has a corresponding virtual power supply rail that is provided with a selectable power supply voltage. The power supply voltage provided to the virtual power supply rail for an element is set to the minimum power supply voltage unless a higher power supply voltage is required for the element to meet performance requirements. A control cell may be provided within each element that provides a control signal that selects the power supply voltage supplied to the corresponding virtual power supply rail. The state of the cell may be set via a fuse or mask, or values may be loaded into the control cells at initialization of the storage device.

Abstract: A selective restore technique for restoring file systems within computer systems provides on-demand access during the restore process, while preventing users from slowing the restore process by generating random accesses to files that have not yet been restored, early in the restore process. The restored files are grouped into multiple groups of files, which correspond to multiple phases of the restore process. On-demand requests may be locked out for some or all users during the first one or more phases of the restore, while they are permitted for the subsequent phases, ensuring that critical files needed by all users will be available before the backup process is interrupted by on-demand accesses. The groups are generally organized by elapsed time since last access or modification, and may be organized at restore time or during periodic back-up operations so that the files may be similarly organized in the backup media.

Abstract: A switching power converter having a current sensing transformer providing input to an auxiliary power supply provides efficient current sensing, while reducing the cost of the magnetic coupling element. The auxiliary power supply and current sense circuit both receive input from a secondary winding of a current sensing transformer having a primary winding coupled in series with the converter's main magnetic coupling element. To provide accurate sensing, the magnetization the current sensing transformer is accounted for. The magnetization is compensated for in the current sensing result, current sensing is performed during a part of the cycle in which charging of the auxiliary power supply is disabled, or the core of the current sensing transformer is made large, raising its mutual inductance. In another alternative technique, a circuit node can be pre-charged to a value that cancels the offset due to the magnetization current.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for generating documents having stored electrostatic pattern information provides security with respect to the authenticity of documents. A liquid medium including a plurality of electrostatic monopoles is applied to the surface of a document, which embeds a permanent electrostatic pattern in the document. The pattern is then readable by an electrostatic scanner. The monopoles may be associated with differing colors, including black and white, may be transparent or have a neutral color. The patterns may embed data, certificates or shapes. The monopoles may provide a watermark or visible image. The apparatus may be a pen or printer, and may include multiple selectable vessels containing ink and/or electrostatic liquid medium of one or both charge states. Visible features of the document can be compared with the detected pattern, or the pattern may be compared to a database or decrypted with a key.

Abstract: A method, system and computer program provide a mechanism for scheduling recording of video content by a digital video recorder (DVR) from web links. Scheduling conflicts with previously-scheduled recording are displayed as indicators within the web links, such as a background color of the selectable video program time-slot in a program guide display that differs from the background color(s) user for non-conflicting links. When a user selects a video program link to record, recording of the program is automatically scheduled, and if a conflict exists, recording of the previously-selected conflicting program (or the conflicting portion) is canceled. If more than one DVR is present, and conflicting programs are scheduled for all DVRs, then the user is provided with a prompt to select which previously-scheduled program to cancel. The conflict resolution may be performed at a web service that maintains a database of previous selections, or by a local script/program.

Abstract: An identification system that may be used in heterogeneous computing environments provides a fail-free path to providing identifiers from a single canonical namespace. Objects or gateways requiring an identifier for access are accessed using an identifier for the canonical namespace. If an entity requests access using an identifier from another namespace, an external database is consulted to determine if a mapping exists for the identifier to another identifier the canonical namespace. If no mapping exists, or the external database is unavailable, then an identifier is automatically generated in the canonical namespace and is used for the access. An internal database is updated with the automatically generated identifier, providing a mechanism to add mappings without administrative intervention. To access resources requiring an identifier from another particular namespace, a canonical namespace identifier may be mapped to another identifier in the particular namespace, or a generic identifier may be used.

Abstract: A method and system for managing peripheral connection wakeup signaling in a processing system supporting multiple virtual machines provides a mechanism by which ownership of a peripheral having system wakeup capability is transferred between virtual machines. The power management event signal is connected to a service processor input that in turn signals a hypervisor to direct the wakeup activity to a particular logical partition in which the virtual machine was last executing. The hypervisor can then determine whether or not to wake up the entire system, or portions thereof and can direct the power management event to the appropriate virtual machine. In particular the peripheral may be an Ethernet adapter supporting Wake-On-LAN capability. State initialization, which is typically ensured by system power cycling is provided instead by controlling power to the standby power source or in some instances by forcing an indication of a disconnect/reconnect of the wakeup signaling connection.

Abstract: A power measurement and calibration system provides power and line frequency measurements by using a bandpass filter having complex voltage and current outputs from which real and imaginary power components can be determined. Calibration of the filter may be omitted if a complex wavelet filter is used to implement the bandpass filter and a determination of line frequency can also be provided for downstream use. A processor receiving data from the output of the filter can compute real and imaginary power, power factor and the line frequency. The filter may be implemented by a processor executing program instructions, or a digital circuit implementing the filter and optionally a CORDIC rotator for computing the current-to-voltage phase relationship can provide input to the processor for power measurement and calibration of the sample rate to line frequency relationship and for other uses.

Abstract: A processor supporting thread-execution-state-sensitive supervisory commands provides a mechanism for executing supervisory commands for live threads. The commands may be sent from a service processor or another primary processor in the system or may be supplied by the processor itself through supervisory software control. Since the state of execution of one or more threads may change dynamically within a processor core, an external processor will not know the thread execution state at the time the command operates. The method and apparatus provide a command set and logic that supports selective execution of particular commands directed at “alive” threads (or threads in some other determinable execution state), whereby the command is performed only on resources and/or execution units depending on the actual state of thread execution when the command operates within the processor.

Abstract: A switch-mode power supply (SMPS) controller integrated circuit (IC) provides ease of integration and SMPS designs. Value and/or types of components external to the controller IC that affect the SMPS control loop response are provided to the IC and an internal conversion block determines coefficients for a digital compensator in conformity with the provided value/type information. The conversion block may be a look-up table, processor or dedicated logic, and the component value/type information may be provided via terminals of the controller IC via logic state, attached resistance/capacitance or from external storage. Alternatively, the component values may be programmed into non-volatile storage within the controller IC.

Abstract: A processor interleaves instructions according to a priority rule which determines the frequency with which instructions from each respective thread are selected and added to an interleaved stream of instructions to be processed in the data processor. The frequency with which each thread is selected according to the rule may be based on the priorities assigned to the instruction threads. A randomization is inserted into the interleaving process so that the selection of an instruction thread during any particular clock cycle is not based solely by the priority rule, but is also based in part on a random or pseudo random element. This randomization is inserted into the instruction thread selection process so as to vary the order in which instructions are selected from the various instruction threads while preserving the overall frequency of thread selection (i.e. how often threads are selected) set by the priority rule.

Abstract: A discrete time delta-sigma modulator circuit, which may be used to implement an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) provides improved anti-aliasing performance when lower quantization rates are selected, by maintaining the clocking rate of a first stage in the delta-sigma modulator loop filter at a rate higher than would ordinarily be selected for a lower quantization rate. To accomplish the anti-aliasing improvement, the ratio between the quantization rate and the clocking rate of the first integrator is reduced at the lower quantization rate, resulting in a first true alias image at a multiple of the quantization rate, permitting anti-aliasing filters to more effectively attenuate the alias image, and attenuating the images spaced at the quantization rate via the averaging operation of the first integrator.

Abstract: Interrupt frequency control by estimating processor load in the peripheral adapter provides adaptive interrupt latency to improve performance in a processing system. A mathematical function of the depth of one or more queues of the adapter is compared to its historical value in order to provide an estimate of processor load. The estimated processor load is then used to set a parameter that controls the frequency of an interrupt generator, which may be controlled by setting an interrupt queue depth threshold, packet frequency threshold or interrupt hold-off time value. The mathematical function may be the ratio of the transmit queue depth to the receive queue depth and the historical value may be predetermined, user-settable, obtained during a calibration interval or obtained by taking a long-term average of the mathematical function of the queue depths.

Abstract: A diagnostic control methodology provides reduced disruption of device operation when performing diagnostics on devices within a computer system. A diagnostic application notifies a device driver that controls a particular device that diagnostics should be performed during a period of low activity on the device. In response to receiving the notification, the device driver waits for a time of low activity and either notifies the application to unload the device driver and load a diagnostic device driver, or enters a diagnostic mode directly if such operation is supported by the functional device driver. A timeout duration can be specified, and may be set by the notification, so that the diagnostics will be performed within the timeout period even if a time of low activity has not occurred by the expiration of the timeout.

Abstract: A system and computer program product for cell placement in an integrated circuit design that uses a calculated diffusion velocity determined from a density value in order to relocate the cells until the cell placement reduces the density below a predetermined threshold. The method acts to control the movement of different cells to reduce the density of the cells prior to legalization of the cell placement.

Abstract: Collaborative voting widgets (or controls) provide a graphical user interface (GUI) that is adapted for collaborative effort between groups of individuals. The widgets have a modal selection state that changes the appearance and functionality of the widget depending on whether the widget is being presented to a particular user (e.g., a group leader) or a member of the group. The group provides user input to vote on a value of the widget. The particular user may subsequently override the voting result, reset the votes and optionally call for a re-vote, overriding the group consensus or breaking ties.

Abstract: An audio switching power amplifier having an output pulse voltage selected in conformity with an indication of the output signal amplitude provides lower electromagnetic interference (EMI) in class-D amplifier implementations, in particular, in inductor-less designs. The output pulse voltage may be selected by providing multiple switching circuits, such as half or fully bridge switches, with each switching circuit connected to a different power supply. One of the switching circuits is activated by the switching controller, while the others are disabled, providing selection of the output pulse voltage. Selection of a lower pulse voltage, when the maximum voltage is not required, reduces the generated EMI. The switching frequency of the class-D amplifier may also be controlled in conformity with the output signal amplitude, so that at higher output levels a lower switching rate is selected, reducing the generated EMI.