Patents Examined by Thomas J. Cleary
  • Patent number: 11301019
    Abstract: A system-on-a-chip (SoC) comprises a power supply circuit coupled to an energy harvesting transducer and configured to operate using energy from the energy harvesting transducer; a microcontroller coupled to a system bus of the SoC; an interface configured to communicate with the microcontroller via the system bus of the SoC, the interface configured to generate data upon occurrence of an event; and a computation accelerator configured to establish, based on an energy consumption level of the SoC, a data path between the interface and the computation accelerator that at least partially bypasses the system bus such that the data is transmitted to the computation accelerator via the data path.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 12, 2022
    Assignee: University of Virginia Patent Foundation
    Inventors: Christopher J. Lukas, Benton H. Calhoun, Farah B. Yahya
  • Patent number: 11294449
    Abstract: A computing device includes a control system that communicates with multiple sensors that capture data regarding a user. The control system communicates with each of the sensors to obtain information regarding the capabilities of each sensor, and uses this capability information to determine how to configure each of the sensors. The control system also selects one of the multiple sensors to be the master sensor, and the rest of the multiple sensors are slave sensors, and notifies the multiple sensors of whether they are a slave sensor or a master sensor. The master sensor collects sensor data for the multiple sensors, capturing data itself as well as receiving data captured by the slave sensors from the slave sensors. The master sensor sends an indication of the collected data (e.g., the collected data itself or data resulting from processing the collected data) to the control system for analysis and/or processing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2022
    Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC
    Inventors: Scott Patrick DeBates, Vivek Kumar Tyagi, Sudhir C. Vissa, Douglas Alfred Lautner
  • Patent number: 11294441
    Abstract: In various embodiments, rail decoupling circuits that are powered by an always on voltage rail allow a core voltage rail to power up independently of an I/O voltage rail without jeopardizing I/O pad circuits that are powered by the I/O voltage rail. In an embodiment, when the always on voltage rail is powered-up and a chip reset signal is asserted, the rail decoupling circuits drive control inputs of the I/O pad circuits based on default values. When the chip reset signal is de-asserted, the rail decoupling circuits drive the control inputs of the I/O pad circuits based on signals received from circuits powered by the core voltage rail. Because the rail decoupling circuits maintain control of the I/O pad circuits until the chip-reset is de-asserted, the core voltage rail can power up at any time before the chip-reset signal is de-asserted irrespective of when the I/O voltage rail powers up.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 25, 2020
    Date of Patent: April 5, 2022
    Assignee: NVIDIA CORPORATION
    Inventors: Rajith Mavila, Venkata Suresh Perumalla, Kwok San Lee
  • Patent number: 11281271
    Abstract: The present invention solves a new problem that may occur when Try.SRC or Try.SNK is adopted. A controller is used to implement a DRP-compliant device that can be both power supply side and power reception side according to the USB Type-C standard. The controller is configured to be able to execute a first process of determining whether or not the Port Power Role of the opposing device is Try.SRC when the Power Role of the own device is determined to be Sink meaning the power receiver according to the sequence with the opposing device, which is the connected device, and a second process of switching the Port Power Role of the own device to SRC only and continuing the sequence with the opposing device if the Port Power Role of the opposing device is Try.SRC.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2022
    Assignee: RENESAS ELECTRONICS CORPORATION
    Inventor: Dan Aoki
  • Patent number: 11281272
    Abstract: In a power supply having a control circuit for regulating the power supply output and a load switch for connecting the output to a load device, a method for reducing standby power includes determining if a load device is connected to the power supply. If no load device is connected, the load switch is turned off, and the power supply enters a standby mode, which includes alternating first time period of power-saving mode and second time period of regulating mode. In the power-saving mode, the control circuit stops regulating the output of the power supply and turns off one or more functional blocks to allow the output to drop, until the output reaches a pre-set low output limit. In the regulating mode, the control circuit turns on the functional blocks and regulates the power supply to allow the output to increase, until the output reaches a pre-set high output limit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 4, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2022
    Assignee: DIODES INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Ko-Yen Lee, Adrian Wang, Clive Huang
  • Patent number: 11281274
    Abstract: Disclosed is a method for a USB power receiving device selecting a power supply option. The method is performed by the USB power receiving device and includes: receiving N power data object(s) (PDO(s)) from a USB power supplying device, in which the N is a positive integer; checking whether at least one of M PDO(s) of the USB power receiving device matches at least one of the N PDO(s) according to a selection rule including a voltage requirement and a current-related requirement and accordingly generating a request data object (RDO), in which the M is a positive integer; and transmitting the RDO to the USB power supplying device to request the USB power supplying device to supply power to the USB power receiving device according to the RDO.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 23, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2022
    Assignee: REALTEK SEMICONDUCTOR CORPORATION
    Inventors: Congyu Zhang, Haichao Zheng, Chen Shen
  • Patent number: 11281284
    Abstract: A method includes detecting a micro start of frame packet (?SOF) on a data bus. If there is at least one data packet contained in a microframe during the first threshold period after the ?SOF, transmitters are held in an active state. If there is no data packet in the first threshold period after the ?SOF, the transmitters are transitioned from the active state to an OFF state. The method also includes transitioning the transmitters from the OFF state to the active state prior to a switchback period before the end of the microframe. The method also includes transitioning the transmitters from the OFF state to the active state if a data packet is received in the OFF state. The method also includes dropping the data packet received in the OFF state and transitioning from the OFF state to the active state when the data packet is dropped.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 17, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 22, 2022
    Assignee: TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED
    Inventors: Suzanne Mary Vining, Douglas Edward Wente, Win Naing Maung, Julie Marie Nirchi
  • Patent number: 11269655
    Abstract: Examples described herein include systems and methods for bare metal management of computing devices. Firmware of the computing device can be configured to contact a network location as part of an HTTP boot and download a boot agent. The boot agent can be prioritized to execute before a primary OS boot loader. The boot agent can download an OS configuration including a package that is inserted into the primary OS. The primary OS, as configured, can then boot. The boot agent can also attest to OS health and device compliance on subsequent boots. For example, the boot agent can cause the firmware to track how many boots have occurred since compliance verification. If a threshold number of boots occur without verification, the boot agent can initiate restoration. Alternatively, if a decommission flag is set, the boot agent can cause the computing device to boot into its original configuration.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 11, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2022
    Assignee: VMware, Inc.
    Inventors: Ahmad Bilal, Alexey Polyakov, Tomas Vetrovsky
  • Patent number: 11243594
    Abstract: An electronic device including a PDIC, a charging IC, and a processor. The PDIC determines whether an external device is connected to the USB port, through a first pin of a USB port. The charging IC outputs a first voltage, which is a voltage obtained by boosting a voltage provided by a battery, to the external device through a second pin, when the external device is connected to the USB port. The processor is configured to determine whether the external device connected to the USB port is a first external device having a specified VID and a specified PID, through a third pin of the USB port, and to transmit a first signal, which controls the charging IC to output a second voltage having a magnitude less than the first voltage, to the charging IC when the first external device is connected to the USB port.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 6, 2020
    Date of Patent: February 8, 2022
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Wookwang Lee, Kyounghoon Kim, Byungjun Kim, Taewoong Kim, Sanghyun Ryu
  • Patent number: 11231766
    Abstract: A computing device includes a control system that communicates with multiple sensors that capture data regarding a user. The control system communicates with each of the sensors to obtain information regarding the capabilities of each sensor, and uses this capability information to determine how to configure each of the sensors. The control system also selects one of the multiple sensors to be the master sensor, and the rest of the multiple sensors are slave sensors, and notifies the multiple sensors of whether they are a slave sensor or a master sensor. The master sensor collects sensor data for the multiple sensors, capturing data itself as well as receiving data captured by the slave sensors from the slave sensors. The master sensor sends an indication of the collected data (e.g., the collected data itself or data resulting from processing the collected data) to the control system for analysis and/or processing.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 26, 2020
    Date of Patent: January 25, 2022
    Assignee: Motorola Mobility LLC
    Inventors: Scott Patrick DeBates, Vivek Kumar Tyagi, Sudhir C. Vissa, Douglas Alfred Lautner
  • Patent number: 11221659
    Abstract: A storage system comprises one or more storage devices, power supplies supplying power to the storage device, a processor that performs in response to determining that the total power consumption of the one or more storage devices is less than a first percentage threshold of a load of the active power supplies, deactivating one or more of the active power supplies until the total power consumption is equal to or greater than the first percentage threshold of a load of each of the active power supplies, and in response to determining that the total power consumption is equal to or greater than a second percentage threshold of a load of each of the active power supplies, activating one or more of the deactivated ones of the power supplies until the total power consumption is less than the second percentage threshold of the load of each of the active power supplies.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 22, 2018
    Date of Patent: January 11, 2022
    Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.
    Inventors: Ramdas P. Kachare, Wentao Wu, Sompong Paul Olarig
  • Patent number: 11204633
    Abstract: A method for protecting operation of a server backboard is provided. The method includes: establishing an adaptive setting mechanism for an overcurrent protection point of the server backboard, where a backboard operation overcurrent protection unit is established on a server mainboard and is configured to acquire load information of a current backboard and adjust, based on the load information, an overcurrent protection point of a power supply path provided by the mainboard to the backboard; establishing an automatic current limiting mechanism applied in a case where the backboard is in an overcurrent state; and establishing a server backboard abnormality control unit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 7, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 21, 2021
    Assignee: ZHENGZHOU YUNHAI INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY CO., LTD.
    Inventor: Tao Liu
  • Patent number: 11200180
    Abstract: Embodiments generally relate to handling of NVMe scatter gather list bit bucket transfers by a data storage device. The data storage device transfers the data associated with the bit bucket transfers to a host or to a controller memory buffer of the data storage device. The data storage device can transfer the data associated with the bit bucket transfers to the host by modifying transaction layer packets (TLPs) to indicate to the host to ignore the data payload of the TLPs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 31, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 14, 2021
    Assignee: WESTERN DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
    Inventor: Shay Benisty
  • Patent number: 11194374
    Abstract: Systems and methods are provided that may be implemented to wake an information handling system from a reduced-powered state in response to a wireless signal wake-up event received from a wireless peripheral device. Non-operating system (OS) components and/or non-BIOS components of an information handling system may be optionally enabled to securely perform pre-OS operations to determine whether or not to wake other components (e.g., such as a system OS and/or system BIOS executing on a host processing device or embedded controller) of the information handling system from a reduced-powered state upon receipt of the wireless signal wake-up event.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 7, 2021
    Assignee: Dell Products L.P.
    Inventors: Daniel L. Hamlin, Yagiz C. Yildiz, Manuel Novoa
  • Patent number: 11194747
    Abstract: A system includes a processor and a hardware accelerator coupled to the processor. The hardware accelerator includes data analysis elements configured to analyze a data stream based on configuration data and to output a result, and an integrated circuit device that includes a DMA engine that writes input data to and read output data from the data analysis elements, one or more preprocessing cores that receive the input data from the DMA engine prior to the DMA engine writing the input data to the one or more data analysis elements and perform custom preprocessing functions on the input data, and one or more post-processing cores that receive the output data from the DMA engine after the output data is read from the data analysis elements but prior to the output data being output to the processor and perform custom post-processing functions on the output data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 24, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 7, 2021
    Assignee: Micron Technology, Inc.
    Inventor: Gavin L. Huggins
  • Patent number: 11181958
    Abstract: An electronic device includes an interface unit having a first terminal and a second terminal, a determination unit that determines a power supply capability of an external device in accordance with a voltage of the second terminal, a power switching unit that determines a current in response to the voltage of the second terminal and a power supply capability of the external device, and a control unit that enables power supply from the external device to be performed with the determined current.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 28, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 23, 2021
    Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
    Inventor: Hiroki Kitanosako
  • Patent number: 11176071
    Abstract: A universal serial bus (USB) apparatus that has a USB hub, a first switching unit including first end coupled to a USB peripheral port of a first device, a second switching unit including a second end coupled to the USB hub and the first switching unit and a first end configured to be coupled to a first USB device, and control circuitry operable to provide control signals to the first and second switching units, in which the first control signals cause the first and second switching units to provide connectivity between the USB peripheral port of the first device and the first USB device when the first USB device is operating as a USB host and the second control signals to provide connectivity between the USB host port to the first USB device via the USB hub when the first USB device is operating as a USB peripheral.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 24, 2019
    Date of Patent: November 16, 2021
    Assignee: Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
    Inventors: David G. Wright, Shopitham Ram
  • Patent number: 11157429
    Abstract: A system, apparatus and method for efficient utilization of available band-width on the system's bus connection. The system includes a scheduler configured to receive a virtual schedule that provides at least one slot for sending a message over the communication bus. A module is configured to send a message over the communication bus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 26, 2021
    Assignee: CALLAHAN CELLULAR L.L.C.
    Inventor: Lars-Berno Fredriksson
  • Patent number: 11144104
    Abstract: In one form, an integrated circuit includes a negative voltage detector circuit and a logic circuit. The negative voltage detector circuit has a power supply input coupled to a power supply voltage terminal, a ground input coupled to a ground voltage terminal, a first input coupled to a first signal terminal, a second input coupled to a second signal terminal, and an output for providing an enable signal when a voltage on the first signal terminal is less than a voltage on the ground voltage terminal by at least a predetermined amount when a signal on said second signal terminal is in a first predetermined logic state. The logic circuit has an input for receiving the enable signal. The logic circuit changes an operation of the integrated circuit in response to an activation of the enable signal.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2021
    Assignee: SILICON LABORATORIES INC.
    Inventors: Rex Tak Ying Wong, Michael R. May, Pio Balmelli
  • Patent number: 11144490
    Abstract: Systems, methods, and apparatus for serial bus arbitration are described. A data communication apparatus has a bus interface circuit that uses a line driver to couple the apparatus to a data line of a serial bus. A processor in a slave device is configured to cause the apparatus to assert an in-band interrupt request on a serial bus operated in accordance with an I3C protocol, transmit a slave address of the slave device over a data line of the serial bus during a first bus arbitration transaction conducted after the in-band interrupt request is asserted, ignore signaling state of the data line while transmitting the slave address and participate in one or more transactions conducted responsive to assertion of the in-band interrupt request and transmission of the slave address. At least one other slave device transmits an address over the data line during the first bus arbitration transaction.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: October 12, 2021
    Assignee: QUALCOMM Incorporated
    Inventors: Sandeep Kumar, Suman Kumar