Abstract: The invention relates to a method of controlling access of a System-on-Chip to an off-chip memory, wherein the System-on-Chip comprises a plurality of agents which need access to the memory.

Abstract: A personal cooling fan is integrated into a mobile electronic device (110, 210, 310). The mobile electronic device (110, 210, 310) has a vibration alert system that includes control circuitry (140, 340) to control a vibration motor (120, 320), and the personal cooling fan system is also controlled by the control circuitry (140, 340). The personal cooling fan system includes a rotary motor (130, 320) contained within a housing (112, 212, 110 312) of the device, a drive shaft (150, 250, 350) having a first portion engaged by the rotary motor (130, 320) and having a second portion protruding from the housing (112, 212, 312), and fan blades (160, 260, 360) removably attached to the second portion of the drive shaft (150, 250, 350) such that the rotary motor (130, 320) is operable to rotate the drive shaft (150, 250, 350) thereby spinning the fan blades (160, 260, 360).

Abstract: Consistent with an example embodiment, a wirebonding process comprises forming a bond pad with a roughened upper surface, lowering a copper wirebond ball onto the roughened bond bad, and applying a force to the wirebond ball against the roughened surface, A heat treatment is applied to form the bond between the wirebond ball and the roughened surface, wherein the bond is formed without use of ultrasonic energy. This process avoids the use of ultrasonic welding and thereby reduces the occurrence of microcracks and resulting Chip Out of the Bond (COUB) and Metal Peel Off (MPO) failures. The roughened surface of the bond pad improves the reliability of the connection.

Abstract: A sound system 100 for producing sound on a loudspeaker 130 is provided wherein the temperature of a voice coil of the loudspeaker may be monitored continuously. The sound system comprises a signal generator 150 for generating an evaluation signal which is combined with an input sound signal 120 to obtain a loudspeaker signal and a monitor 140 for monitoring an electric response of the voice coil to the loudspeaker signal. The loudspeaker signal may be adapted 180 to control the temperature of the voice coil in dependency upon the monitored response. The system can determine the temperature of the voice coil 170 even if the input sound signal comprises only little sound energy.

Abstract: The present application relates to a method for embedded video compression comprising receiving image data. The method comprises compressing the image data into compressed data blocks with a predefined data rate by using a video compression mode. The method comprises compressing the image data into compressed data blocks with the predefined data rate by using a graphic compression mode, wherein the predefined data rate defines a target code size of a compressed data block. The method comprises detecting whether a code size of the data block does not meet the target code size. The method comprises quantizing at least one input pixel of the image data in case a code size of the data block does not meet the target code size. The present application relates also to a method for embedded video decompression, an apparatus for embedded video compression and an apparatus for embedded video decompression.

Abstract: A circuit for an N-bit stage (110i) of a pipeline ADC having L=2N levels, the circuit comprising: an operational amplifier (420); a first feedback capacitor (Cf1) having a first plate connected to an input of the operational amplifier and a second plate switchably connected on a first clock signal (4)1) to a first input voltage (±Vm) and on a second clock signal (?1) to an output of the operational amplifier; a second feedback capacitor (Cf2) having a first plate connected to the input of the operational amplifier and a second plate switchably connected on the first clock signal to a discharge connection and on the second clock signal (?2) to an output of the operational amplifier; and a plurality of K sampling capacitors (Cu), each sampling capacitor having a first plate connected on the first clock signal to the input of the operational amplifier and a second plate switchably connected on the first clock signal to a second input voltage (Vin) and on the second clock signal to one of a positive and negative

Abstract: Disclosed is a method of switching modes in a serial data communication network comprising a plurality of interconnected nodes, each of said nodes comprising a plurality of mode-dependent configurations, the method including, during a first mode, issuing an instruction to said nodes, said instruction identifying a next mode of the data communication network; terminating said first mode; and following said termination, reconfiguring each of said nodes in accordance with the configuration corresponding to said next mode identified by said instruction. A serial data communication network implementing such a method is also disclosed.

Abstract: An antenna arrangement comprises a ground plane (14) and a planar antenna element (30) mounted spaced from and parallel to the ground plane. An open-ended slot (16) is provided in the ground plane (14), the slot being coextensive with an edge portion of the ground plane and having a first end (18) opening into the edge portion of the ground plane and a second closed end (20). An antenna feed (22) is coupled to the slot at a location intermediate the first and second ends. The planar antenna element is connected by an electrically conductive wall (28) to the edge portion of the ground plane, the wall (28) being co-extensive with the slot (16). The combination of the slot shape, slot location and the wall serves to increase the bandwidth of the antenna arrangement.

Abstract: Consistent with an example embodiment, there is a method of controlling a synchronous rectifier having an input signal having oscillations therein and a switch which is switchable between an open state and a closed state. The method comprises filtering the input signal to produce a filtered signal, comparing the filtered signal with a reference value, and opening the switch in response to the comparison, in which the filtering is active filtering. The active filtering may be based on determination of the peaks (positive and/or negative) of the signal, either directly, including a quarter period offset, or including decay—or a combination of the above; alternatively, the active filtering may be based on the a smoothing functions such as a switched low-pass filter or a short time integrator.

Abstract: A current sensor, comprises an input conductor (IN) which is supplied with the current to be sensed and an output conductor (OUT) from which the current to be sensed is output. A conductor path is provided between the input conductor and the output conductor, wherein the path is provided on a first, movable element (1) and a second, fixed element (2). The path defines a pair of adjacent path portions (3,5; 3;4), one of the path portions (4;5) on the fixed element and the other (3) on one side of the movable element. An arrangement detects movement of the movable element to determine the current flowing. This arrangement uses a conductor path which can be part of the circuit being tested, and thereby does not require any additional components, other than the movement detector.

Abstract: Video data is communicated wirelessly. In accordance with various example embodiments, a wireless video communications system and approach involves communicating video from a server to clients over an ad-hoc wireless network that is implemented for relatively high bandwidth transmission (e.g., as may be amenable for use with high-definition video). In particular example embodiments, this approach is implemented for distributing video-services data such as that received in connection with a satellite or cable television services.

Abstract: A system and method for sensing a load current that flows from an amplifier into a load of the amplifier involves obtaining a voltage drop across internal impedance of the amplifier and computing the load current using the internal impedance and the voltage drop across the internal impedance.

Abstract: An oscillator device comprises a resonator mass which is connected by a spring arrangement to a substrate and a feedback element for controlling oscillation of the resonator mass, which comprises a piezoresistive element connected between the resonator mass and the substrate. The invention provides an oscillator device in which the two parts (resonator and circuit to close the oscillation loop) are combined inside one single oscillator device, which can be a MEMS device.

Abstract: A method and system for determining and compensating for a non-linearity in a hands-free acoustic telecommunication device is disclosed. The method determines a back electromotive force signal induced in a loudspeaker from at least one of a coil voltage, a current signal and estimates of coil resistance and inductance, estimating at least one of a cone position and a cone velocity from the BEMF integrated with respect to time and determining an estimate of an echo value from a series connection of an estimated inverse of a force factor function primitive and the estimated acoustic impulse response; and outputting the estimated echo value.

Abstract: A tuning method and tuner apparatus having a plurality of frequency conversion stages for concurrently receiving more than one channel. To avoid disturbance by oscillator pulling, a multi-phased local oscillator signal required by sub-mixers of a DAC mixer share the same timing reference. To minimize the complexity, die area and power dissipation of the local oscillation generation, a tuning offset is accepted from each of the down-conversion stages, and loss of receiver performance by the tuning offset is avoided by a control function for controlling the receiver circuit to process an increased dynamic range introduced by the tuning offset.

Abstract: Wireless communications over different networks using overlapping signal channels is facilitated. According to an example embodiment, information characterizing the usage of an overlapping channel by a first network is used to schedule communications on the overlapping channel by the second network. Another example embodiment is directed to the use of existing coexistence control lines between collocated communications circuits in a wireless device to communicate data indicative of the use of the overlapping channel. In some applications, these communications approaches are used with a network device operating on different networks, such as with a handheld device that communicates on both a Bluetooth network and wireless local area network (WLAN).

Abstract: A method and circuit for providing a switched current source output has a precharge mode, in which a charge storage device is charged to a reference voltage, and the gate of an output transistor is discharged. In a discharge mode, the charge storage device is discharged to the gate of the output transistor to raise the gate voltage by an amount depending on the charge flow.

Abstract: An electronic circuit has an interface for an I2C-bus. The interface comprises a first node for a clock line of the I2C-bus; a second node for a data line of the I2C-bus; and an I2C-bus controller for controlling an operation of the interface under combined control of the clock line and the data line. The circuit has a plurality of further nodes for connecting to a plurality of further data lines. The controller has an operational mode for control of receiving from the further nodes, or for control of supplying to the further nodes, a plurality of data bits in parallel under combined control of the clock line and the data line.

Abstract: A circuit arrangement is described comprising a first receiver configured to receive a first input signal, a second receiver configured to receive a second input signal, a first signal generator configured to generate a first pulse signal, a second signal generator configured to generate a second pulse signal, wherein a delay between a rising edge of the first pulse signal and a rising edge of the second pulse signal is proportional to a difference between the first input signal and the second input signal, a first converter configured to convert the first pulse signal to a first digital number proportional to a width of the first pulse signal, a second converter configured to convert the second pulse signal to a second digital number proportional to a width of the second pulse signal, wherein at least one of the first converter and the second converter comprises a cascade of at least two converter stages, wherein each converter stage of the at least two converter stages is configured to propagate and shrink

Abstract: A method of supplying electrical energy from a first electronic circuit (10) to a second electronic circuit (20) connected via a communication interface (30), which interface (30) comprises at least one wire line (31) within a Radio Frequency Identification communication device (1), the method comprising the steps of: providing a coded high frequency data signal (S1) in the first electronic circuit (10); transmitting said coded high frequency data signal (S1) containing data and clock information via said communication interface (30) from said first electronic circuit (10) to said second electronic circuit (20); rectifying the transmitted coded high frequency data signal (S1) via rectifier means (21) in said second electronic circuit (20) to provide a rectified power signal (RS); and supplying the electrical energy contained in the rectified power signal (RS) to the second electronic circuit (20).