Patents Assigned to Silicon Laboratories
  • Patent number: 11894864
    Abstract: In one embodiment, an analog-to-digital converter includes: a sum circuit to receive an analog input signal and a feedback reference signal and generate a sum signal; a feedback circuit coupled to the sum circuit to provide the feedback reference signal to the sum circuit; a filter coupled to the sum circuit to receive the sum signal and generate a filtered signal; and a punctured quantizer coupled to the filter to receive the filtered signal and quantize the filtered signal to a digital output and to output the digital output and to provide the digital output to the feedback circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2022
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: John M. Khoury
  • Patent number: 11894621
    Abstract: An apparatus includes an RF apparatus, and a multi-band matching balun coupled to the RF apparatus. The multi-band matching balun includes at least one three-element frequency-dependent resonator (TEFDR) and at most three reactive elements.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Zoltan Vida, Attila L. Zolomy
  • Patent number: 11894826
    Abstract: An apparatus includes a radio-frequency (RF) apparatus, and a multi-band matching balun coupled to the RF apparatus. The multi-band matching balun including a plurality of capacitors and a plurality of inductors. None of the plurality of capacitors and none of the plurality of inductors is variable or tunable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 18, 2017
    Date of Patent: February 6, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Zoltan Vida, Attila L. Zolomy
  • Patent number: 11888540
    Abstract: An apparatus includes a radio-frequency (RF) receiver, which includes an automatic gain-control (AGC) circuit to use a gain signal to set a gain of front-end circuitry of the RF receiver. The RF receiver further includes an interference-detection circuit to use a value of the gain signal to detect an interference signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: Hendricus de Ruijter
  • Patent number: 11886621
    Abstract: In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a clock generator to receive a reference clock signal and generate a first clock signal using the reference clock signal; a counter coupled to the clock generator to maintain a first count regarding a number of cycles of the first clock signal; and a controller coupled to the counter. The controller may be configured to detect a potential security violation when the first count varies from a predetermined value.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 24, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 30, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: Brian Taylor Brunn
  • Patent number: 11878432
    Abstract: A robotic integrated circuit placement system includes a test board comprising a socket for holding an integrated circuit, a tester coupled to the test board, a chip tray having a plurality of slots for storing respective integrated circuits including the integrated circuit, and a robotic arm system. The robotic arm system includes a robotic arm having a stepper motor for controlling a position of an end of the robotic arm, a camera, and a controller coupled to the robotic arm and adapted to operate the robotic arm automatically. The controller performs image processing on images acquired by the camera, and moves the integrated circuit between the chip tray and the socket using the robotic arm in response to the image processing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 21, 2019
    Date of Patent: January 23, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Ting Yit Wee, Shang-Gil Ghang, Sorin Adrian Badiu
  • Patent number: 11863192
    Abstract: An apparatus includes a digitally controlled oscillator (DCO), which includes an inductor coupled in series with a first capacitor. The DCO further includes a second capacitor coupled in parallel with the series-coupled inductor and first capacitor, a first inverter coupled in parallel with the second capacitor, and a second inverter coupled back-to-back to the first inverter. The DCO further includes a digital-to-analog-converter (DAC) to vary a capacitance of the first capacitor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2022
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: John M. Khoury
  • Patent number: 11862872
    Abstract: An apparatus includes a module comprising an antenna having at least one antenna component. The apparatus further includes at least one tuning component coupled to the at least one antenna component. The at least one tuning component is external to the module.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: January 2, 2024
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Pasi Rahikkala, Tuomas Hänninen
  • Patent number: 11848806
    Abstract: In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a radio frequency (RF) front end circuit to receive and downconvert a RF signal to a second frequency signal, the RF signal comprising an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) transmission; a digitizer coupled to the RF front end circuit to digitize the second frequency signal to a digital signal; and a baseband processor coupled to the digitizer to process the digital signal. The baseband circuit comprises a first circuit having a first plurality of correlators having an irregular comb structure, each of the first plurality of correlators associated with a carrier frequency offset and to calculate a first correlation on a first portion of a preamble of the OFDM transmission.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2023
    Date of Patent: December 19, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: Frederic Pirot
  • Patent number: 11817868
    Abstract: An apparatus includes a digitally controlled oscillator (DCO), which includes an inductor coupled in series with a first capacitor. The DCO further includes a second capacitor coupled in parallel with the series-coupled inductor and first capacitor, a first inverter coupled in parallel with the second capacitor, and a second inverter coupled back-to-back to the first inverter. The DCO further includes a digital-to-analog-converter (DAC) to vary a capacitance of the first capacitor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 30, 2022
    Date of Patent: November 14, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: John M. Khoury
  • Patent number: 11811442
    Abstract: An apparatus includes a radio-frequency (RF) receiver for receiving RF signals. The RF receiver includes a plurality of modulation signal detectors (MSDs) to generate a plurality of detection signals when a plurality of RF signals modulated using a plurality of modulation schemes are detected. The RF receiver further includes a controller to cause reception of the plurality of RF signals in response to the plurality of detection signals.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: Hendricus de Ruijter
  • Patent number: 11811446
    Abstract: A bias circuit for a low noise amplifier of a front end interface of a radio frequency communication device including a bias generator providing a bias voltage on a bias node for the low noise amplifier, a first resistive device coupled between the bias node and an input of the low noise amplifier, a first switch coupled in parallel with the first resistive device, and mode control circuitry receiving a mode signal indicative of a mode change, in which the mode control circuitry, in response to a mode change, momentarily activates the first switch to bypass the first resistive device and momentarily increases current capacity of the bias generator. The mode control circuitry may also momentarily activate a second switch to bypass a second resistive device of the bias circuit. The mode control circuitry may increase a sink current of the bias generator in response to the mode change.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 27, 2021
    Date of Patent: November 7, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Luigi Panseri, Yu Su, Mustafa H. Koroglu
  • Patent number: 11802930
    Abstract: Systems and methods are provided to simultaneously determine both angle of arrival (AoA) and angle of departure (AoD) of a signal transmitted between two or more radio frequency (RF)-enabled wireless devices (e.g., such as BLE modules). The disclosed systems and methods may be so implemented in one embodiment to determine AoD even in the case where the transmitting wireless device is at the same time operating in a departure (or AoD) transmitting mode by transmitting a RF signal from multiple antenna elements of at least one switched antenna array using a given switching pattern or sequence implemented by an array switch.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 1, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: Jere M. Knaappila
  • Patent number: 11802894
    Abstract: In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a sensor to sense real world information; a digitizer coupled to the sensor to digitize the real world information into digitized information; a signal processor coupled to the digitizer to process the digitized information into a spectrogram; a neural engine coupled to the signal processor, the neural engine comprising an autoencoder to compress the spectrogram into a compressed spectrogram; and a wireless circuit coupled to the neural engine to send the compressed spectrogram to a remote destination, to enable the remote destination to process the compressed spectrogram.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 17, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Antonio Torrini, Javier Elenes
  • Patent number: 11804862
    Abstract: In one embodiment, an integrated circuit includes: a first radio frequency (RF) circuit configured to receive and process a first RF signal having a sub-gigahertz (GHz) frequency to output a first lower frequency signal and to transmit RF signals having the sub-GHz frequency; a second RF circuit configured to receive and process a second RF signal having a frequency of at least substantially 2.4 GHz to output a second lower frequency signal and to transmit RF signals at the at least substantially 2.4 GHz; shared analog circuitry coupled to the first RF circuit and the second RF circuit, the shared analog circuitry to receive at least one of the first RF signal or the second RF signal and output a digital output signal; and a digital circuit coupled to the shared analog circuit, the digital circuit to recover message information from the digital output signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 30, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Euisoo Yoo, Arup Mukherji, Rangakrishnan Srinivasan, Vitor Pereira, Zhongda Wang, Sriharsha Vasadi
  • Patent number: 11805414
    Abstract: Systems and methods are provided that may be implemented to use angle of arrival (AoA) of a signal transmitted between two Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless devices to initially authenticate a connection between the two BLE devices. In one example, bonding or pairing with a first BLE device may be restricted to only those other BLE devices having an antenna currently positioned to transmit a signal to the first BLE device from an allowed direction and within a predefined permitted range of AoA relative to the first BLE device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 25, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: Jani K. Knaappila
  • Patent number: 11803203
    Abstract: An apparatus for measuring a current being supplied to a load includes a first pass transistor to couple a first sense resistance to the load when the first pass transistor is enabled and a second pass transistor to couple a second sense resistance to the load when the second pass transistor is enabled. An error amplifier determines a difference between a voltage being supplied to the load and a reference voltage and to supplies an error amplifier output signal according to the difference. A switch couples the error amplifier output signal to a gate of the first pass transistor or to a gate of the second pass transistor. Control logic controls the switch according to a value of the current being supplied to the load. The voltage being supplied to the load is controlled using the error amplifier output signal that is selectively coupled to the gate of the first pass transistor or the gate of the second pass transistor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 13, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Franco Maggi, Peter Pap
  • Patent number: 11804811
    Abstract: In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a low noise amplifier (LNA) to receive and amplify a radio frequency (RF) signal, the LNA having a first controllable gain; a mixer to downconvert the RF signal to a second frequency signal; a programmable gain amplifier (PGA) coupled to the mixer to amplify the second frequency signal, the PGA having a second controllable gain; a digitizer to digitize the second frequency signal to a digitized signal; a demodulator coupled to the digitizer to demodulate the digitized signal; an automatic gain control (AGC) circuit to control one or more of the first controllable gain and the second controllable gain; and an AGC settling circuit to cause the demodulator to begin operation in response to determining that the AGC circuit has settled.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Robert M. Gorday, Guner Arslan, Marc Leroux, Pascal Blouin
  • Patent number: 11790044
    Abstract: In an embodiment, an apparatus includes: a sensor to sense real world information; a digitizer coupled to the sensor to digitize the real world information into digitized information; a signal processor coupled to the digitizer to process the digitized information into an image; a discriminator coupled to the signal processor to determine, based at least in part on the image, whether the real world information comprises an anomaly, where the discriminator is trained via a generative adversarial network; and a controller coupled to the discriminator.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2022
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventors: Javier Elenes, Antonio Torrini
  • Patent number: 11789708
    Abstract: A system and method for creating firmware patch files is disclosed. The method utilizes the Executable Linkable Format file that is created when the firmware image is created. By analyzing the ELF file, the patch creation software is able to identify functions and other data in the new firmware image. The patch creation software then compares these functions to corresponding functions in the old firmware image. The method then creates an edit sequence that may be used to transform the old firmware image into the new firmware image. The edit sequence is then converted into a series of opcodes, where each opcode is followed by at least one parameter. A patch program, disposed on a network device, is able to apply the patch file to update its firmware. This method creates a smaller patch file than other popular tools.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 22, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 17, 2023
    Assignee: Silicon Laboratories Inc.
    Inventor: Hannu Mallat