Patents Assigned to Texas Instruments
  • Patent number: 9264038
    Abstract: A circuit for receiving digital signals over a transmission line. A feedback circuit is coupled to an input node of the transmission line and adjusts the input impedance of the receiver circuit to match the characteristic impedance of the transmission line. The feedback circuit includes a first current source controlled by a first voltage and having a first transconductance, and a second current source controlled by the first voltage and having a second transconductance equal to the first transconductance times a first scaling factor. The feedback circuit includes a first resistance element having a resistance equal to the first scaling factor plus one, times the characteristic impedance of the transmission line, and is coupled between the outputs of the first and second current sources.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventor: Horia Giuroiu
  • Patent number: 9263952
    Abstract: A circuit for sensing gate voltage of a power FET. A switching circuit includes a switching FET having a high voltage rating, its drain coupled to the gate of the power FET, and its source coupled to an output node. A first feedback loop is coupled to the gate of the switching FET to facilitate sensing rising gate voltage. A second feedback loop is coupled to the gate of the switching FET to facilitate sensing falling gate voltage.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Zheng Li, Wai Cheong Chan
  • Patent number: 9263973
    Abstract: A MEMS electrostatic actuator includes a bottom plate affixed to a substrate and a top plate suspended above the bottom plate. The top plate has a parallel plate center section and two rotating members electrically connected to the center section. Each rotating member is attached centrally of the rotating member for rotation about an axis of rotation to a set of anchor posts. The attachment includes at least one pair of torsional springs attached along each axis, each spring comprising a rectangular metal square that twists as the rotational members rotate. Electrostatic pull-down electrodes are underneath each rotational member.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 21, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Arun Kumar Gupta, William Craig McDonald
  • Patent number: 9264679
    Abstract: A mobile device, such as a smart phone, is provided with a camera and a projector. A user may select a still image or a video sequence and project it onto a viewing surface using the mobile device. Once the viewer selects a preferred perspective view frame, the image frame may be pinned to the viewing surface. After that, the viewer may move the projector to different positions while holding the projector, or sit the projector on a table and the viewed image will be maintained in the same perspective view frame as the initial selected view.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 10, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Manasvi Tickoo, Vinay Sharma
  • Patent number: 9261560
    Abstract: An embodiment provides a circuit for testing an integrated circuit. The circuit includes a scan compression architecture driven by a scan clock and generates M scan outputs, where M is an integer. A clock divider is configured to divide the scan clock by k to generate k number of phase-shifted scan clocks, where k is an integer. A packing logic is coupled to the scan compression architecture and generates kM slow scan outputs in response to the M scan outputs and the k number of phase shifted scan clocks. The packing logic further includes M number of packing elements. Each packing element includes k number of flip-flops. Each flip-flop of the k number of flip-flops receives a scan output of the M scan outputs and a phase-shifted scan clock of the k number of phase-shifted scan clocks, and generates a slow scan output of the kM slow scan outputs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 31, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Rajesh Kumar Mittal, Mudasir Shafat Kawoosa, Sreenath Narayanan Potty
  • Patent number: 9264117
    Abstract: A method of operating a user equipment device includes extracting at least one rank indicator (RI) from an uplink grant, and adapting a transmission rank in response to said RI. At least two transmit antennas are configured to transmit according to said transmission rank.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 5, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Runhua Chen, Eko N. Onggosanusi
  • Patent number: 9264217
    Abstract: In at least some embodiments, an electronic device includes a data sink and a buffer coupled to the data sink. The buffer is configured to receive streaming data in transit to the data sink. The electronic device also includes a clock drift compensation controller coupled to the buffer, wherein the clock drift compensation controller is configured to apply either of two predetermined clock drift compensation values to a clock rate for the buffer whenever a buffer fullness status value is offset from a predetermined threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 23, 2015
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Laurent Le-Faucheur, Eric Badi
  • Patent number: 9261558
    Abstract: The disclosure describes a novel method and apparatus for improving interposers to include embedded monitoring instruments for real time monitoring digital signals, analog signals, voltage signals and temperature sensors located in the interposer. An embedded monitor trigger unit controls the starting and stopping of the real time monitoring operations. The embedded monitoring instruments are accessible via an 1149.1 TAP interface on the interposer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 3, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventor: Lee D. Whetsel
  • Patent number: 9263147
    Abstract: An apparatus for concurrent test of a set of flash memory banks apparatus includes a memory data path (MDP) module coupled to a test controller. The MDP module includes a test control module configured to generate a concurrent control signal that configures the set of flash memory banks to be tested simultaneously; and a set of comparators, that generates a first comparator output in response to the concurrent control signal and an input from the set of flash memory banks. A reduction logic is configured to generate a reduction logic output that combines a status of the comparator outputs to be compressed. A control logic is configured for selective programming across different flash bits of the set of flash memory banks. A fail flag is configured to generate one of an output value ‘0’ if there is a mismatch in data read from the set of flash memory banks in any access, and an output value 1 if there is no mismatch in data read in any access.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 18, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Rajat Mehrotra, Rubin Ajit Parekhji, Maheedhar Jalasutram, Charu Shrimali
  • Patent number: 9261571
    Abstract: Compact, low power fluxgate magnetic sensor readout circuits and apparatus are presented in which demodulator or rectifier circuit to modulates a sense signal from the fluxgate sense coil, and the demodulated signal is provided to an amplifier circuit with a transconductance or other amplifier and one or more feedback capacitors connected between the amplifier input and amplifier output to integrate the amplifier output current and provide a voltage output signal indicating the magnetic field sensed by the fluxgate sensor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Viola Schaffer, Mikhail Valeryevich Ivanov
  • Patent number: 9264710
    Abstract: Several systems and methods for intra-prediction estimation of video pictures are disclosed. In an embodiment, the method includes accessing four ‘N×N’ pixel blocks comprising luma-related pixels. The four ‘N×N’ pixel blocks collectively configure a ‘2N×2N’ pixel block. A first pre-determined number of candidate luma intra-prediction modes is accessed for each of the four ‘N×N’ pixel blocks. A presence of one or more luma intra-prediction modes that are common among the candidate luma intra-prediction modes of at least two of the four ‘N×N’ pixel blocks is identified. The method further includes performing, based on the identification, one of (1) selecting a principal luma intra-prediction mode for the ‘2N×2N’ pixel block and (2) limiting a partitioning size to a ‘N×N’ pixel block size for a portion of the video picture corresponding to the ‘2N×2N’ pixel block.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 8, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Ranga Ramanujam Srinivasan, Hyung Joon Kim, Akira Osamoto
  • Patent number: 9261764
    Abstract: A pixel array display system which has an illumination source with a plurality of emitters in a sparse array, collimators in front of the emitters, a condenser lens downstream of the collimators, an optical homogenizing element downstream from the condenser lens, a relay lens downstream from the optical homogenizing element, a pixel array downstream from the relay lens, a rear group of lens elements of a projection lens downstream from the pixel array, a polarization converter stack downstream from the rear group of lens elements and a front group of lens elements of the projection lens downstream from the polarization converter stack, so that light from the emitters is imaged onto input apertures of the polarization converter stack.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 1, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventor: John Marshall Ferri
  • Patent number: 9263444
    Abstract: A method of fabricating Schottky barrier contacts for an integrated circuit (IC). A substrate including a silicon including surface is provided having a plurality of transistors formed thereon, where the plurality of transistors include at least one exposed p-type surface region and at least one exposed n-type surface region on the silicon including surface. A plurality of metals are deposited including Yb and Pt to form at least one metal layer on the substrate. The metal layer is heated to induce formation of an inhomogeneous silicide layer including both Ptsilicide and Ybsilicide on the exposed p-type and n-type surface regions.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 28, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Deborah Jean Riley, Judy Browder Shaw, Christopher L. Hinkle, Creighton T. Buie
  • Patent number: 9264103
    Abstract: Apparatus (and related methods) for a power line communication network include a processor configured to receive beacons over a communication interface. The processor determines a link quality indicator (LQI) for each received beacon and ignores the beacons for at most a predetermined maximum number of beacon receptions when each LQI is below a threshold. The processor responds to a received beacon if the LQI for such received beacon exceeds the threshold or if a predetermined maximum number of beacons have been received with LQIs below the threshold.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 16, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Kamaran Vijayasankar, Ramanuja Vedantham, Il Han Kim
  • Publication number: 20160043539
    Abstract: Circuits and methods for providing short-circuit protection in a voltage regulator are disclosed. A voltage regulator includes a pass switch, a voltage error amplifier, a driver circuit, and a short-circuit protection circuit. The pass element is coupled to a power supply and a load, and generates an output voltage in response to a drive signal. The voltage error amplifier generates an error voltage based on a difference of a reference voltage and the output voltage and the driver circuit generates the drive signal in response to the error voltage. The short-circuit protection circuit senses the drive signal and provides a high-resistance path to the driver circuit in a short-circuit event. In a short-circuit event, the high-resistance path clamps current in the driver circuit thereby clamping a voltage difference between the first and third terminals and thereby limiting a load current in the short-circuit event.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 6, 2014
    Publication date: February 11, 2016
    Applicant: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Suresh Mallala, Somshubhra Paul
  • Publication number: 20160043586
    Abstract: USB charger apparatus and chargeable electronic devices are presented in which the device and charger use USB cable data lines to establish a bidirectional communications connection, and the charger provides charger capability information to a master controller of the electronic device via the communications connection. The device controller preferentially selects a fastest charging match between the charger capability information and device charging capability information, and sends configuration information through the communications connection to set the power supply level of the charger. The charger communicates power supply status information to the electronic device, and the device can reconfigure the charger power supply level accordingly.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 8, 2014
    Publication date: February 11, 2016
    Applicant: Texas Instruments Incorporated
    Inventors: Tao Wang, Jiachuan Zhang, Junjie Mai, Yingling Sun
  • Patent number: 9256943
    Abstract: A method of misalignment correction in a structured light device is provided that includes extracting features from a first captured image of a scene, wherein the first captured image is captured by an imaging sensor component of the structured light device, and wherein the first captured image includes a pattern projected into the scene by a projector component of the structured light device, matching the features of the first captured image to predetermined features of a pattern image corresponding to the projected pattern to generate a dataset of matching features, determining values of alignment correction parameters of an image alignment transformation model using the dataset of matching features, and applying the image alignment transformation model to a second captured image using the determined alignment correction parameter values.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 27, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Vikram VijayanBabu Appia, Ibrahim Ethem Pekkucuksen
  • Patent number: 9257132
    Abstract: A method of dominant speech extraction is provided that includes acquiring a primary audio signal from a microphone and at least one additional audio signal from at least one additional microphone, wherein the acquired audio signals include speech and noise, decomposing each acquired audio signal into a low frequency sub-band signal and a high frequency sub-band signal, applying speech suppression beamforming to the low frequency sub-band signals to generate a reference channel having an estimate of noise in the low frequency sub-band signals, applying noise cancellation to the low frequency sub-band signal of the primary audio signal using the reference channel to generate a first signal having a low frequency estimate of the speech, applying noise suppression beamforming to the high frequency sub-band signals to generate a second signal having a high frequency estimate of the speech, and combining the first and second signals to generate a full-band audio signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 1, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Baboo Vikrhamsingh Gowreesunker, Nitish Krishna Murthy, Edwin Randolph Cole
  • Patent number: 9257440
    Abstract: In an embodiment of the invention, a non-volatile anti-fuse memory cell is disclosed. The memory cell consists of a programmable n-channel diode-connectable transistor. The poly-silicon gate of the transistor has two portions. One portion is doped more highly than a second portion. The transistor also has a source with two portions where one portion of the source is doped more highly than a second portion. The portion of the gate that is physically closer to the source is more lightly doped than the other portion of the poly-silicon gate. The portion of the source that is physically closer to the lightly doped portion of the poly-silicone gate is lightly doped with respect to the other portion of the source. When the transistor is programmed, a rupture in the insulator will most likely occur in the portion of the poly-silicone gate that is heavily doped.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 2, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Allan T. Mitchell, Mark A. Eskew, Keith Jarreau
  • Patent number: 9257126
    Abstract: A method of encoding samples in a digital signal is provided that includes receiving a frame of N samples of the digital signal, determining L possible distinct data values in the N samples, determining a reference data value in the L possible distinct data values and a coding order of L?1 remaining possible distinct data values, wherein each of the L?1 remaining possible distinct data values is mapped to a position in the coding order, decomposing the N samples into L?1 coding vectors based on the coding order, wherein each coding vector identifies the locations of one of the L?1 remaining possible distinct data values in the N samples, and encoding the L?1 coding vectors.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 6, 2014
    Date of Patent: February 9, 2016
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Lorin Paul Netsch, Jacek Piotr Stachurski