Patents Assigned to Elan Microelectronics Corporation
  • Publication number: 20090302114
    Abstract: A two dimensional dot code includes boundary dots, a direction dot and a code dot to regenerate an information therefrom. To decode the two dimensional dot code, the boundary dots and the direction dot are used to define coordinates of virtual code dots first and then, the code dot is compared with the coordinates of the virtual code dots. Thus, in order to retrieve the information represented by the two dimensional dot code, the position of the code dot can be rapidly determined without rotational correction of the image taken from the two dimensional dot code.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 4, 2008
    Publication date: December 10, 2009
    Applicant: ELAN MICROELECTRONICS CORPORATION
    Inventors: CHEN-HUA AO, YI-HSIN TAO, CHENG-RU CHANG
  • Patent number: 7576732
    Abstract: A scroll control method using a touchpad comprises predefining a region on a touchpad, whereby a scroll function will be triggered by a landing of an object on the region, and terminated by a leaving of the object from the touchpad. During the scroll function is executed, the moving distance of the object sliding on the touchpad is calculated to determine a corresponding scrolling signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2005
    Date of Patent: August 18, 2009
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Jia-Yih Lii
  • Patent number: 7545615
    Abstract: In an LCD source driver, to enhance the ESD performance thereof, there is provided a path in a device area penetrating thereacross such that an internal power wire or an internal ground wire to connect between an output pad and a power-rail ESD clamp circuit on two margins, respectively, of the LCD source driver could pass through the path to shorten the internal power wire or the internal ground wire and thereby to avoid chip area increase for the ESD mechanism.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2009
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Yi-Chan Chen
  • Patent number: 7545038
    Abstract: A bumping process comprises forming a passivation layer having a planarized surface covering a pad on a substrate, forming a hole penetrating through the passivation layer to expose a contact surface of the pad, and forming a bump on the contact surface and planarized surface. The planarized surface will provide a larger effective area for pressing, thereby minimizing the pad, enhancing the mechanical strength at the peripheral of the pad, providing more selection flexibility for anisotropic conductive film, reducing the possibilities of short circuit and current leakage within the bump gap, and increasing the yield of the pressing process and the conductive quality of the bump.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 18, 2008
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2009
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Chun-Ping Hu, Cheng-Chung Chen, Chien-Wen Tsi, Yu-Ching Lee
  • Patent number: 7544600
    Abstract: A bumping process comprises forming a passivation layer having a planarized surface covering a pad on a substrate, forming a hole penetrating through the passivation layer to expose a contact surface of the pad, and forming a bump on the contact surface and planarized surface. The planarized surface will provide a larger effective area for pressing, thereby minimizing the pad, enhancing the mechanical strength at the peripheral of the pad, providing more selection flexibility for anisotropic conductive film, reducing the possibilities of short circuit and current leakage within the bump gap, and increasing the yield of the pressing process and the conductive quality of the bump.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 17, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 9, 2009
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Chun-Ping Hu, Cheng-Chung Chen, Chien-Wen Tsi, Yu-Ching Lee
  • Patent number: 7538686
    Abstract: A remote controller includes an input module including an input panel and a controller coupled to the input panel for generating coordinate information of the input panel. The remote controller further includes a data transmission interface for transmitting data to an electronic appliance, a microphone for transforming sound waves into audio signals, a speaker for transforming audio signals into sound waves, an image capturing module for capturing and converting image of a user to image signals, an image display module for converting image signals of a remote user received to an image, and a control unit coupled to the input module, the data transmission interface, the microphone, and the speaker, for controlling the data transmission interface to transmit audio or images signals and data corresponding to the coordinate information generated by the controller to the electronic appliance.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 15, 2007
    Date of Patent: May 26, 2009
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: I-Hau Yeh, Ming-Chang Chiang
  • Patent number: 7436690
    Abstract: In a flat cell read only memory, two bit lines or two virtual ground lines share a common contact such that the contact is slightly adjustable in its location for inserting a local metal word line without increasing the layout area to improve the reading speed of the memory. Moreover, two adjacent banks of the memory share common bit lines or virtual ground lines, whereby reducing the contact density and height of the memory.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2008
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Hsu-Shun Chen
  • Patent number: 7436395
    Abstract: In a capacitive touchpad, a plurality of sensing zones are defined, and a controller is connected with a plurality of scan lines for sensing a movement of an object slipping on the plurality of sensing zones, wherein at least one of the plurality of scan lines is connected to at least two of the plurality of sensing zones. The distance, speed and direction of the movement are determined by detecting the object on the touchpad at two positions upon two scans, and thereby the control of a scroll bar is accomplished. The capacitive touchpad is applied for a Z-axis arrangement on a mouse and a scroll arrangement on a keyboard.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 8, 2005
    Date of Patent: October 14, 2008
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Yen-Chang Chiu, Yung-Lieh Chien, Cheng-Hao Tang
  • Patent number: 7388787
    Abstract: In a reference current generator, a current mirror has a referent branch with a first current flowing thereon and a mirror branch to produce a second current by mirroring the first current, a first transistor is coupled to the referent branch, a second transistor is coupled to the mirror branch and has a gate coupled to the gate of the first transistor, one or more third transistors each produces a reference current by mirroring the first current or the second current to supply for a load, and a resistor having a resistance proportional to the absolute temperature is coupled to the first transistor such that a third current equal to the summation of the first current and all the mirrored reference currents flows through the resistor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2006
    Date of Patent: June 17, 2008
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Lionel Portmann, Tse-Chi Lin
  • Patent number: 7362244
    Abstract: A user programmable input apparatus with a keyboard comprises several keys with one or more special keys thereof on the keyboard for input operations, a microprocessor to receive inputs from the keys when they are pressed, a nonvolatile memory programmable by operating the keys for users themselves to program or define key definitions or functions for the keyboard or to store data or microinstructions or other programs thereto, and a transmission arrangement connected to the microprocessor to output data to the computer system or other peripheral connected with the input apparatus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 22, 2004
    Date of Patent: April 22, 2008
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Ben-Chang Sun
  • Patent number: 7358812
    Abstract: A class AB operational buffer comprises an output stage, a voltage supply circuit to provide a first voltage and a second voltage to drive the output stage, a first current source to provide a first current, a second current source to provide a second current, a first current mirror having a first reference branch coupled with the first current and a first mirror branch coupled with the second current through the voltage supply circuit, and a second current mirror having a second reference branch coupled between the second current source and first mirror branch and a second mirror branch coupled between the first current source and first reference branch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 28, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 15, 2008
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Lionel Portmann, Yi-Chan Chen
  • Patent number: 7324089
    Abstract: The present invention relates to an improved optical device for optical mouse, being installed inside the case body of the optical mouse, comprising: a LED, a lens mount, a sensor and a digital signal processor. That is, instead of using the LED, the LED assembly clip, the positioning holes and the lens mount, which are separated from and independent to one another, for fixing the LED inside the optical mouse, the present invention uses a combined device featuring fool-proof, and positioning-insetting-all-in-one concept can place the LED precisely at the first lens of the lens mount and is capable of installing the LED accurately onto the lens mount and the same time rapidly and effectively adjusting and fixing the relative angle and position as seen in FIG. 6 between the lens mount and the LED. Moreover, the combined device is easy to positioned such that the forgoing shortcomings of high manufacturing cost and difficult to mass-produced are avoided.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 29, 2008
    Assignees: Leahsin Technologies Inc., Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Timothy Lin, Yu-Min Lin
  • Patent number: 7274353
    Abstract: A capacitive touchpad integrated with key and handwriting functions is provided for operation in key, handwriting and mouse modes. Several regions are defined on the panel of the touchpad and have several patterns printed thereon for the operation modes thereby. In the key mode, the key patterns among the printed patterns simulate a keyboard. In the handwriting mode, the handwriting region among the defined regions serves to handwriting input. In the mouse mode, the defined regions provide a cursor moving region and a horizontal and vertical scroll bars for input operations.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 24, 2003
    Date of Patent: September 25, 2007
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Yen-Chang Chiu, Ting-Hao Yeh, Yung-Lieh Chien, Shih-Chi Lin
  • Patent number: 7203242
    Abstract: A code rate adaptive encoding/decoding arrangement and method for a pulse code modulation system comprises a code rate adaptor and a code capacity meter to dynamically produce a code rate adaptive signal for the code length of the pulse code modulation adaptive to actual situations during the encoding/decoding process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 25, 2003
    Date of Patent: April 10, 2007
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Wei-Fan Lu
  • Patent number: 7158070
    Abstract: While transforming an analog input voltage into a digital signal including several bits, an analog-to-digital converter including a built-in self test (BIST) circuit is used for performing the transformation and compensating an offset error of the analog input voltage. The operations of the digital-to-analog converter include a self test mode and a normal mode. And each of the self test mode and the normal mode includes a sampling phase and a bit cycling phase.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 21, 2005
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2007
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Chao-Chi Yang, Chung-An Tang
  • Patent number: 7154765
    Abstract: In a flat-cell ROM including a plurality of memory banks, each of the memory banks comprises a memory array, a plurality of bit lines, a plurality of virtual ground lines, three select lines, and a common row of contacts shared with an adjacent memory bank. The common row of contacts are used for connecting the bit lines and virtual ground lines to bit signal lines and virtual ground lines, respectively, and the select lines are used for selecting memory cells in the memory array. With a common row of contacts shared by two adjacent banks, the ROM area is reduced.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 13, 2005
    Date of Patent: December 26, 2006
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Hsu-Shun Chen
  • Patent number: 7123842
    Abstract: The present invention discloses an ultrasonic and infrared transmitter with tunable carrier frequency, which comprises an oscillation frequency, a frequency divider, a multiplexer and an output buffer on an integrated circuit in association with an infrared light emitting diode or ultrasonic transducer to transmit infrared or ultrasonic carrier signals. The oscillation frequency is divided by the frequency divider and sent to one input of the multiplexer which has the other input connected with a user-controlled data, and finally the output buffer outputs the data. The integrated circuit provides two carrier signal output ports, and the carrier signals from these two output ports are inverted to each other, thus the described apparatus can transmit not only infrared carrier signal but also ultrasonic carrier signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2001
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2006
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Chun-Yang Hsiao, Shui-Po Ho
  • Patent number: 7043434
    Abstract: An integrated speech synthesizer with an automatic identification of speaker connections and identification method includes a sound encode register to store encoded digitized sound data, a first digital to analog converter unit connected to the sound encode register to convert the digitized sound data from the sound encode register to a first analog signal and send out the first analog signal from a first output terminal, a second digital to analog converter unit connected to the sound encode register to convert the digitized sound data from the first output terminal to a second analog signal and send out the second analog signal from the first output terminal and a second output terminal, and a state register connected to the first output terminal to store the state of the first output terminal before the speech synthesizer is enabled. The state stored in the state register is used to set up the initial value and other related settings for the speech synthesizer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2001
    Date of Patent: May 9, 2006
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Wuu-Trong Shieh
  • Patent number: 7016616
    Abstract: The present invention discloses an integrated circuit receiver available for infrared or ultrasonic transmission by use of digital filtering for demodulation of infrared or ultrasonic carrier signal. The integrated circuit receiver comprises an infrared receiver or ultrasonic transducer to receive the transmitted signal from outside and output a modulated carrier signal. The modulated carrier signal is fed to an amplifier circuit to be amplified and then outputted to a digital filter to filter out the carrier from the amplified signal, and thus a digital data signal is recovered. The filtering thereof is done by a digital filter instead of an analog one.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 23, 2001
    Date of Patent: March 21, 2006
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventor: Chun-Yang Hsiao
  • Patent number: 6992607
    Abstract: To reduce power consumption and operation frequency, a speech synthesizer comprises a volume control unit to receive a control signal and generate a control bias, a signal transform unit to receive the control bias Vbias and a series of digital speech codes and under the control of the most significant bit of the digital speech codes to transform the other bits of the digital speech codes or its inverse into an analog signal, and a current output unit to receive the analog signal from the signal transform unit and output the analog signal from its two current output terminals under the control of the most significant bit of the digital speech codes. The speech synthesizer therefore needs no additional transistor to drive a speaker connected between the two current output terminals and save power.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2001
    Date of Patent: January 31, 2006
    Assignee: Elan Microelectronics Corporation
    Inventors: Wuu-Trong Shieh, Ying-Pin Ho