Patents by Inventor Benjamin FRANCOIS

Benjamin FRANCOIS has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 11804557
    Abstract: A high efficiency configuration for a solar cell module comprises solar cells arranged in an overlapping shingled manner and conductively bonded to each other in their overlapping regions to form super cells, which may be arranged to efficiently use the area of the solar module.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2021
    Date of Patent: October 31, 2023
    Assignee: MAXEON SOLAR PTE. LTD.
    Inventors: Yafu Lin, Benjamin Francois
  • Publication number: 20220085218
    Abstract: A high efficiency configuration for a solar cell module comprises solar cells arranged in an overlapping shingled manner and conductively bonded to each other in their overlapping regions to form super cells, which may be arranged to efficiently use the area of the solar module.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 28, 2021
    Publication date: March 17, 2022
    Applicant: SUNPOWER CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yafu LIN, Benjamin FRANCOIS
  • Patent number: 11269828
    Abstract: Data sharding partitions data associated with an application into multiple shards in which each shard stores a subset of the data. A shard is further divided into multiple microshards in which each microshard contains a subset of the shard data. A set of microshards are assigned to a specified shard. The assignment of microshards can change, e.g., when new shards are added and microshards are migrated from one shard to another shard. A microshard map, which indicates a mapping between the microshards and shards, is updated automatically when the assignments change. After identifying the shard to which a specified microshard is assigned using the microshard map, a data access request from a client device is automatically forwarded to the appropriate shard. Because data can be accessed efficiently regardless of whether the number of shards changes, the data sharding facilitates provisioning of the shards on a need basis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 12, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 8, 2022
    Assignee: Meta Platforms, Inc.
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Sumeet Ungratwar, Daniel Arraes Pereira, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sameet Harishanker Agarwal
  • Patent number: 11139403
    Abstract: A high efficiency configuration for a solar cell module comprises solar cells arranged in an overlapping shingled manner and conductively bonded to each other in their overlapping regions to form super cells, which may be arranged to efficiently use the area of the solar module.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2019
    Date of Patent: October 5, 2021
    Assignee: SunPower Corporation
    Inventors: Yafu Lin, Benjamin Francois
  • Publication number: 20200105951
    Abstract: A solar cell can include a first plurality of metal contact fingers, and a second plurality of metal contact fingers interdigitated with the first plurality of metal contact fingers, wherein at least one of the first plurality of metal contact fingers comprises a wrap-around metal finger that passes between a first edge of the solar cell and at least one contact pads. A photovoltaic (PV) string including a solar cell with a wrap-around metal contact finger. A method of coupling an electrically conductive connector to a solar cell with a wrap-around metal contact finger.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 27, 2019
    Publication date: April 2, 2020
    Inventors: Matthieu Minault Reich, Lewis C. Abra, David Fredric Joel Kavulak, Andrea R. Bowring, Benjamin Francois, Peter J. Cousins, Boris Bastien, Benjamin I. Hsia, Raphael M. Manalo
  • Publication number: 20200081874
    Abstract: Data sharding partitions data associated with an application into multiple shards in which each shard stores a subset of the data. A shard is further divided into multiple microshards in which each microshard contains a subset of the shard data. A set of microshards are assigned to a specified shard. The assignment of microshards can change, e.g., when new shards are added and microshards are migrated from one shard to another shard. A microshard map, which indicates a mapping between the microshards and shards, is updated automatically when the assignments change. After identifying the shard to which a specified microshard is assigned using the microshard map, a data access request from a client device is automatically forwarded to the appropriate shard. Because data can be accessed efficiently regardless of whether the number of shards changes, the data sharding facilitates provisioning of the shards on a need basis.
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 12, 2019
    Publication date: March 12, 2020
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Sumeet Ungratwar, Daniel Arraes Pereira, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sameet Harishanker Agarwal
  • Publication number: 20190393361
    Abstract: A high efficiency configuration for a solar cell module comprises solar cells arranged in an overlapping shingled manner and conductively bonded to each other in their overlapping regions to form super cells, which may be arranged to efficiently use the area of the solar module.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 14, 2019
    Publication date: December 26, 2019
    Inventors: Yafu LIN, Benjamin FRANCOIS
  • Patent number: 10510907
    Abstract: A high efficiency configuration for a solar cell module comprises solar cells arranged in an overlapping shingled manner and conductively bonded to each other in their overlapping regions to form super cells, which may be arranged to efficiently use the area of the solar module.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 23, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 17, 2019
    Assignee: SUNPOWER CORPORATION
    Inventors: Yafu Lin, Benjamin Francois
  • Patent number: 10503714
    Abstract: Data sharding partitions data associated with an application into multiple shards in which each shard stores a subset of the data. A shard is further divided into multiple microshards in which each microshard contains a subset of the shard data. A set of microshards are assigned to a specified shard. The assignment of microshards can change, e.g., when new shards are added and microshards are migrated from one shard to another shard. A microshard map, which indicates a mapping between the microshards and shards, is updated automatically when the assignments change. After identifying the shard to which a specified microshard is assigned using the microshard map, a data access request from a client device is automatically forwarded to the appropriate shard. Because data can be accessed efficiently regardless of whether the number of shards changes, the data sharding facilitates provisioning of the shards on a need basis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 2, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 10, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Sumeet Ungratwar, Daniel Arraes Pereira, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sameet Harishanker Agarwal
  • Patent number: 10178168
    Abstract: The disclosure is directed to data replication in a distributed computing system. The system ensures a read-after-write consistency for the replicated data by associating the write requests with unique version numbers, and using them to obtain the data. A server associates a write request with a unique version number, and returns the version number to a client, which can use it in a subsequent read request for the data. On receiving a read request for a first data, the server extracts the version number from the request and ensures a specified write request associated with the version number is processed prior to obtaining the data. If the specified write request is processed, the server obtains the data and returns it to the client, else the server processes the pending write requests up until the version number and then the specified write request, and returns the specified data to the client.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 19, 2015
    Date of Patent: January 8, 2019
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Zelaine Fong, Marc Alexander Celani, Vishal Kathuria, Sanketh Indarapu, Rohit Subhash Bhoj, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sumeet Ungratwar
  • Publication number: 20180349419
    Abstract: Data sharding partitions data associated with an application into multiple shards in which each shard stores a subset of the data. A shard is further divided into multiple microshards in which each microshard contains a subset of the shard data. A set of microshards are assigned to a specified shard. The assignment of microshards can change, e.g., when new shards are added and microshards are migrated from one shard to another shard. A microshard map, which indicates a mapping between the microshards and shards, is updated automatically when the assignments change. After identifying the shard to which a specified microshard is assigned using the microshard map, a data access request from a client device is automatically forwarded to the appropriate shard. Because data can be accessed efficiently regardless of whether the number of shards changes, the data sharding facilitates provisioning of the shards on a need basis.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 2, 2017
    Publication date: December 6, 2018
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Sumeet Ungratwar, Daniel Arraes Pereira, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sameet Agarwal
  • Patent number: 10027748
    Abstract: The disclosure is directed to data replication in a distributed computing system. The data, e.g., received from a client, is replicated to a first set of servers (“sync replica set”) synchronously and to a second set of servers asynchronously (“async tree”). A server can be a primary, secondary or a follower server. A sync replica set includes a primary server and one or more secondary servers. The async tree includes multiple follower servers deployed in a tree structure. A primary server can replicate the data to the secondary servers synchronously, and the secondary servers can replicate the data to one or more follower servers, e.g., a root node of the async tree, asynchronously. The root node then replicates the data to children of the root node, which then replicate to their children and so on until the leaf nodes of the async tree receive the data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 10, 2015
    Date of Patent: July 17, 2018
    Assignee: Facebook, Inc.
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Zelaine Fong, Marc Alexander Celani, Vishal Kathuria, Sanketh Indarapu, Rohit Subhash Bhoj, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sumeet Ungratwar
  • Publication number: 20170243986
    Abstract: A high efficiency configuration for a solar cell module comprises solar cells arranged in an overlapping shingled manner and conductively bonded to each other in their overlapping regions to form super cells, which may be arranged to efficiently use the area of the solar module.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 23, 2017
    Publication date: August 24, 2017
    Inventors: Yafu LIN, Benjamin FRANCOIS
  • Publication number: 20170054802
    Abstract: The disclosure is directed to data replication in a distributed computing system. The system ensures a read-after-write consistency for the replicated data by associating the write requests with unique version numbers, and using them to obtain the data. A server associates a write request with a unique version number, and returns the version number to a client, which can use it in a subsequent read request for the data. On receiving a read request for a first data, the server extracts the version number from the request and ensures a specified write request associated with the version number is processed prior to obtaining the data. If the specified write request is processed, the server obtains the data and returns it to the client, else the server processes the pending write requests up until the version number and then the specified write request, and returns the specified data to the client.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 19, 2015
    Publication date: February 23, 2017
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Zelaine Fong, Marc Alexander Celani, Vishal Kathuria, Sanketh Indarapu, Rohit Subhash Bhoj, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sumeet Ungratwar
  • Publication number: 20170013058
    Abstract: The disclosure is directed to data replication in a distributed computing system. The data, e.g., received from a client, is replicated to a first set of servers (“sync replica set”) synchronously and to a second set of servers asynchronously (“async tree”). A server can be a primary, secondary or a follower server. A sync replica set includes a primary server and one or more secondary servers. The async tree includes multiple follower servers deployed in a tree structure. A primary server can replicate the data to the secondary servers synchronously, and the secondary servers can replicate the data to one or more follower servers, e.g., a root node of the async tree, asynchronously. The root node then replicates the data to children of the root node, which then replicate to their children and so on until the leaf nodes of the async tree receive the data.
    Type: Application
    Filed: July 10, 2015
    Publication date: January 12, 2017
    Inventors: Muthukaruppan Annamalai, Zelaine Fong, Marc Alexander Celani, Vishal Kathuria, Sanketh Indarapu, Rohit Subhash Bhoj, Benjamin Francois Marie Renard, Sumeet Ungratwar