Patents Examined by Fahmida Rahman
  • Patent number: 9703362
    Abstract: An electronic device includes a power supply unit, a to-be-used function setting unit, and a function-specific power supply control unit. The power supply unit supplies electric power to a constituent unit of the electronic device from a main power source. The to-be-used function setting unit sets functions to be used when the main power source is turned on. The function-specific power supply control unit controls the power supply unit to a) supply electric power to a constituent unit corresponding to a function that has been set by the to-be-used function setting unit when the main power source is turned on and b) supply electric power to a constituent unit corresponding to a function that has not been set by the to-be-used function setting unit when the function that has not been set is selected after turning on the main power source.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 25, 2014
    Date of Patent: July 11, 2017
    Assignee: KYOCERA Document Solutions Inc.
    Inventors: Katsuji Furushige, Masaya Okuda, Masato Hirota
  • Patent number: 9703365
    Abstract: To provide a startup UI presentation portable device capable of automatically presenting a preset UI highly likely to be used next in the current posture when returned from a sleep mode, the portable device (1), when returned from the sleep mode (S1), determines whether the posture (S2) of the portable device (1) sent from a built-in acceleration sensor is within a specified range of a reference posture predetermined for each of a camera, a projector and a direction indicator (S3). When the posture is within the specified range (YES in S3), the portable device (1) displays a startup UI (icon) previously associated as a startup UI for a function most likely to be used in the reference posture on a display screen (S5). The display of the startup UI is performed automatically subsequent to release of the sleep mode, without requiring an unlock operation or password entry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 16, 2012
    Date of Patent: July 11, 2017
    Assignee: NEC Corporation
    Inventor: Kenichi Kitatani
  • Patent number: 9689917
    Abstract: Implementations of the present disclosure involve a system and/or method for measuring on-die voltage levels of an integrated circuit through a digital sampling circuit. In particular, the system and/or method utilize a delay line based analog-to-digital sampling circuit that produces a voltage reading over time, such as at every high frequency clock cycle. In one embodiment, the digital sampling circuit may include a clock jitter monitor circuit configured with a constant supply voltage. This clock jitter monitor is configured to measure the clock jitter that is experienced by the digital voltage monitor circuit and, when compared to measured voltage captured by the circuit, may be used to calibrate or otherwise correct the readings provided by the digital voltage monitor circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 20, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 27, 2017
    Assignee: Oracle International Corporation
    Inventors: Sebastian Turullols, Vijay Srinivasan, Changku Hwang
  • Patent number: 9678549
    Abstract: A computer-implemented method, system, and/or computer program product controls downloading of an application to a mobile device based on power consumption of the application. A server receives a first power nameplate for a first application and a second power nameplate for a second application, a first priority rating of the first application and a second priority rating of the second application, a power descriptor that identifies an amount of power available to a mobile device, and a set of application downloading rules. The set of application downloading rules includes a soft rule, a hard rule, and a medium rule. The server then selectively uploads, to the mobile device, the first application or the second application based on a selected rule.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2015
    Date of Patent: June 13, 2017
    Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
    Inventor: Rajesh K. Jeyapaul
  • Patent number: 9665380
    Abstract: A technique for booting a computing device using a boot image that is downloaded from a distributed network booting system involves identifying a tracker computing device that manages a plurality of computing devices that store all or a portion of the boot image, receiving from the tracker computing device information about one or more computing devices from which to download the boot image, and downloading the boot image from the one or more computing devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: May 30, 2017
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Daniel Kerry Hiltgen, Suresh Sundriyal, Wit Riewrangboonya
  • Patent number: 9659616
    Abstract: In an embodiment, an apparatus may include a plurality of circuit blocks, a plurality of fuses and circuitry. The circuitry may be configured to determine a state for each of the plurality of fuses in response to transitioning from an off mode to a first operating mode. A first number of circuit blocks may be enabled in the first operating mode. The circuitry may also be configured to initialize the first number of circuit blocks dependent upon the states of one or more of the plurality of fuses and to transition from the first operating mode to a second operating mode. A second number of circuit blocks, less than the first number, may be enabled in the second operating mode. The circuitry may also be configured to store data representing the states of a subset of the plurality of fuses into a first memory enabled in the second operating mode.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: May 23, 2017
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Manu Gulati, Erik P. Machnicki, Gilbert H. Herbeck
  • Patent number: 9632795
    Abstract: An electronic device including a control unit, an embedded controller and a battery module is provided. During a booting procedure of the electronic device, the embedded controller reads a reported battery capacity and a battery temperature of the battery module. The embedded controller determines whether the reported battery capacity is lower than a minimum capacity, and further determines whether the battery temperature is lower than a minimum temperature when the reported battery capacity is lower than the minimum capacity. When the reported capacity is lower than the minimum capacity and the battery temperature is also lower than the minimum temperature, the embedded controller generates a fake battery capacity, according to which an operating system of the electronic device performs various operations. In this application, the battery module of the electronic device remains working even when the electronic device is in a low-temperature and low-battery activation environment.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 28, 2014
    Date of Patent: April 25, 2017
    Assignee: Getac Technology Corporation
    Inventor: Chun-Chi Wang
  • Patent number: 9606599
    Abstract: A power supply circuit includes a first power supply for a normal power mode, a second power supply for a power saving mode, which is connected in parallel with the first power supply, a controller to which power from the first power supply and power from the second power supply are supplied via a common connection point, and a switch element which is connected between an output terminal of the first power supply and the connection point and controls power that is supplied to the controller, wherein the switch element includes a diode between a source terminal and a drain terminal of the switch element, the drain terminal of the switch element is connected to the first power supply side to prevent current flowing from the connection point toward the first power supply, and the source terminal of the switch element is connected to the connection point side.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 25, 2013
    Date of Patent: March 28, 2017
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Katsumi Takahashi
  • Patent number: 9594421
    Abstract: There is provided a method and apparatus for power management in a storage resource. The storage resource comprises at least one RAID array including a plurality of physical drives. The method comprises: determining a reduced number of physical drives within a RAID array upon which data is to be concentrated; moving data stored on said RAID array and/or targeting data written to said RAID array to one or more of said reduced number of physical drives such that said data is concentrated on said reduced number of physical drives in said RAID array; and selectively applying power management logic to enable, based on at least one power management criterion, one or more physical drives in said RAID array to be powered down or to be supplied with reduced power.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 8, 2011
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2017
    Assignee: Xyratex Technology Limited
    Inventor: Robert P. Rossi
  • Patent number: 9582449
    Abstract: An interconnection system, apparatus and method is described for arranging elements in a network, which may be a data memory system, computing system or communications system where the data paths are arranged and operated so as to control the power consumption and data skew properties of the system. A configurable switching element may be used to form the interconnections at nodes, where a control signal and other information is used to manage the power status of other aspects of the configurable switching element. Time delay skew of data being transmitted between nodes of the network may be altered by exchanging the logical and physical line assignments of the data at one or more nodes of the network. A method of laying out an interconnecting motherboard is disclosed which reduces the complexity of the trace routing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 10, 2012
    Date of Patent: February 28, 2017
    Assignee: Violin Memory, Inc.
    Inventor: Jon C. R. Bennett
  • Patent number: 9575531
    Abstract: A PDU management system for automatically configure, manage and monitor managed power distribution units (PDUs) includes: (a) a user interface module configured to allow an operator to enter management information of the managed PDUs, (b) a database configured to store management information of the managed PDUs, (c) a power management communication interface configured to facilitate the communication between the PDU management system and the managed PDUs through a communication link, (d) a PDU power management module configured to construct, manage, and monitor the managed PDUs, (e) a PDU discovery module configured to discover all managed PDUs according to the information entered by the operator through the user interface module, (f) a PDU loader to load the management information of the managed PDUs to the database, the PDU discovery module and the PDU power management module.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 21, 2017
    Assignee: AMERICAN MEGATRENDS, INC.
    Inventors: Chittaraiah Pabba, Joseprabu Inbaraj
  • Patent number: 9568978
    Abstract: Since the maximum power consumption is largely a concern at the power supply domain, a limited number of nodes may be allowed to consume their maximum power consumption by preventing other nodes from consuming their maximum power consumption. This approach may be used either instead of or in cooperation with existing maximum power consumption regulators.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 26, 2013
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2017
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: James S. Burns, James W. Alexander, Muralidhar Rajappa
  • Patent number: 9568967
    Abstract: A power supply system and method are disclosed. The power supply system is to generate a power signal for providing power to a device. The power supply system includes a transmitter to modulate a data signal onto the power signal that is demodulated at the device. The transmitter is further to transmit a separate binary control signal on the power signal to change a state of a digital control parameter associated with the device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 12, 2011
    Date of Patent: February 14, 2017
    Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP
    Inventors: David P. Mohr, Daniel Humphrey
  • Patent number: 9535451
    Abstract: An embedded multimedia card (eMMC) comprises a clock channel configured to receive a clock signal from a host, a command channel configured to receive a command from the host, a plurality of data channels configured to transmit data to the host, a data strobe channel configured to transmit a data strobe signal synchronized with the data to the host, and a data strobe control unit configured to selectively enable or generate the data strobe signal according to a protocol control signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 12, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2017
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Myung Sub Shin, Sung Ho Seo, Kyung Phil Yoo, Jung Pil Lee, Hwa Seok Oh, Young Gyu Kang, Jun Ho Choi
  • Patent number: 9537665
    Abstract: To address the need for power management, the following facilitates maintaining power states in an efficient manner based at least in part on managing packets at different layers of an input/output interface that supports multiple layers. One specific example prevents a destructive event for link layer control logic because packets and information might have been lost or dropped due to a hang condition and/or a dropped packet. In yet another example of power management, this facilitates a low power platform state by preventing the loss of packets or data upon exiting a platform power state upon initiation of a link reset condition by preventing certain types of packets from reaching link layer controller logic.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2013
    Date of Patent: January 3, 2017
    Assignee: Intel Corporation
    Inventors: Selim Bilgin, Lily P. Looi, Jeffrey C. Swanson
  • Patent number: 9531551
    Abstract: One or more dual-role Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) port units are each selectively configurable to operate as either (i) a PoE Power Source Equipment (PSE) port unit to provide power to a device connected to the PoE port unit, or (ii) a PoE Powered Device (PD) port unit to sink power from the connected device. Each PoE port unit includes a network port, and a bi-directional power converter to selectively convert power in either (i) a first direction and to provide converted power to the network port when the PoE port unit operates as the PSE port unit, or (ii) in a second direction to convert power received from the network port when the PoE port unit operates as the PD port unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 26, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2016
    Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc.
    Inventors: Koussalya Balasubramanian, Charles Calvin Byers, Matthew A. Laherty
  • Patent number: 9529406
    Abstract: Interface management techniques provide reduced power consumption along with reducing heat and EMI generation in a computer system having multiple interconnected processing units. Physical link layers of external interfaces that interconnect the processing units have dynamically adjustable bandwidth provided by an adjustable width and adjustable operating frequency. The bandwidths may be dynamically adjusted by predicting interface bandwidth requirements. From a required bandwidth, an active width and an operating frequency for the physical link layers are determined and set. The interface is operated according to the determined width and operating frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 12, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2016
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Daniel Mark Dreps, Frank D. Ferraiolo, Anand Haridass, Prasanna Jayaraman
  • Patent number: 9529405
    Abstract: A system and method for managing idleness of functional units in an IC is disclosed. An IC includes a subsystem having a number of functional units and an idle aggregation unit. When a particular functional unit determines that it is idle, it may assert an idle indication to the idle aggregation unit. When the respective idle indications are concurrently asserted for all of the functional units, the idle aggregation unit may assert and provide respective idle request signals to each of the functional units. Responsive to receiving an idle request unit, a given functional unit may provide an acknowledgement signal to the idle aggregation unit if no transactions are incoming. If all functional units have concurrently asserted their respective acknowledgement signals, the idle aggregation unit may provide an indication of the same to a clock gating unit, which may then gate the clock signal(s) received by the functional units.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 27, 2016
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Erik P. Machnicki, Gilbert H. Herbeck, Shu-Yi Yu, Sebastian Skalberg
  • Patent number: 9524013
    Abstract: Interface management techniques provide reduced power consumption along with reducing heat and EMI generation in a computer system having multiple interconnected processing units. Physical link layers of external interfaces that interconnect the processing units have dynamically adjustable bandwidth provided by an adjustable width and adjustable operating frequency. The bandwidths may be dynamically adjusted by predicting interface bandwidth requirements. From a required bandwidth, an active width and an operating frequency for the physical link layers are determined and set. The interface is operated according to the determined width and operating frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 16, 2014
    Date of Patent: December 20, 2016
    Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
    Inventors: Daniel Mark Dreps, Frank D. Ferraiolo, Anand Haridass, Prasanna Jayaraman
  • Patent number: 9494990
    Abstract: A disclosed electric power consumption computation device includes an acquisition unit configured to acquire apparatus information from an apparatus connected to the electric power consumption computation device via a predetermined data communication path, and a computation unit configured to compute electric power consumption of the apparatus based on information on a number of output sheets output by the apparatus contained in the apparatus information acquired by the acquisition unit and a TEC value of the apparatus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 25, 2010
    Date of Patent: November 15, 2016
    Assignee: Ricoh Company, Limited
    Inventor: Jun Murata