Abstract: A power system including a first battery pack, a second battery pack, and a power management circuit is disclosed. The first battery pack has a first end and a second end, and has a first battery capacity. The second battery pack has a third end and a fourth end. The third end is coupled to the second end of the first battery pack and provides a low battery voltage. The fourth end is grounded, the second battery pack has a second battery capacity, and the second battery capacity is greater than the first battery capacity. The power management circuit is coupled to the second battery pack to receive the low battery voltage, and provides a component operating voltage to an electronic components based on the low battery voltage.

Abstract: Trenches in which to form a back side isolation structure for an array of CMOS image sensors are formed by a cyclic process that allows the trenches to be kept narrow. Each cycle of the process includes etching to add a depth segment to the trenches and coating the depth segment with an etch-resistant coating. The following etch step will break through the etch-resistant coating at the bottom of the trench but the etch-resistant coating will remain in the upper part of the trench to limit lateral etching and substrate damage. The resulting trenches have a series of vertically spaced nodes. The process may result in a 10% increase in photodiode area and a 30-40% increase in full well capacity.

Abstract: An anti-peep light source module includes a light source module and a viewing angle switching module. The light source module has a light source and a light guide plate (LGP) and has light emitting elements arranged along a first direction. The viewing angle switching module is located on a transmission path of an illumination beam of the light source module and includes a viewing angle limiting element and a viewing angle adjusting element configured to change a viewing angle of the illumination beam. The viewing angle limiting element has a grating structure and is located between the viewing angle adjusting element and the light source module. an included angle between an extension direction of the grating structure and the first direction is within a range from 88 degrees to 92 degrees. The anti-peep light source module and A display device achieve favorable optical performance, user experience, and production yield.

Abstract: A wafer container includes a frame, a door and at least a pair of shelves. The frame has opposite sidewalls. The pair of the shelves are respectively disposed and aligned on the opposite sidewalls of the frame. Various methods and devices are provided for holding at least one wafer to the shelves during transport.

Abstract: A surgical robot including at least one contact module, a control connection module, at least one first robotic arm, and at least one grip control device. A first transmission member of the control connection module drives the control module through a first transmission connecting member. A first shaft member of the first robotic arm is connected with the first transmission member while the grip control device is connected with the first robotic arm by a transmission interface. A force sensing member of the first robotic arm detects a first reaction force from the contact module so that the first robotic arm sends a feedback control signal to the grip control device to control a grip driving member to generate a force feedback for allowing a grip portion to move. Thereby, users can feel movement of the grip portion caused by the force feedback to avoid accidental iatrogenic injuries.

Abstract: A piezoelectric patch sensor for measuring muscle movement of contraction and extension is disclosed. The sensor is elongated and directly attached to a skin site of a user for the measuring via an interface circuit connected to a host processor. The piezoelectric patch sensor has an adhesive layer with an adhesive bottom surface for firmly attaching to the skin site. An elastic sheet is integrated on top of the adhesive layer. A piezoelectric thread is further integrated on top of the elastic sheet and has a bundle of aligned piezoelectric fibers. The thread is electrically coupled to the interface circuit via a pair of conductive wires, forming a piezoelectric measurement circuitry. Muscle movement under the skin site shrinks or extends the piezoelectric patch sensor in its entirety along the direction of muscle movement due to a corresponding shrinking or extending movement of the skin firmly attached to the adhesive layer.

Abstract: A piezoelectric patch sensor for measuring muscle movement of contraction and extension is disclosed. The sensor is elongated and directly attached to a skin site of a user for the measuring via an interface circuit connected to a host processor. The piezoelectric patch sensor has an adhesive layer with an adhesive bottom surface for firmly attaching to the skin site. An elastic sheet is integrated on top of the adhesive layer. A piezoelectric thread is further integrated on top of the elastic sheet and has a bundle of aligned piezoelectric fibers. The thread is electrically coupled to the interface circuit via a pair of conductive wires, forming a piezoelectric measurement circuitry. Muscle movement under the skin site shrinks or extends the piezoelectric patch sensor in its entirety along the direction of muscle movement due to a corresponding shrinking or extending movement of the skin firmly attached to the adhesive layer.

Abstract: An automatic gain control apparatus includes an amplitude detecting circuit, a distortion detecting circuit, a gain determining circuit and an amplifying circuit. The amplifying circuit applies a gain to an input signal to generate an output signal. The amplitude detecting circuit detects an average amplitude of the input signal. The distortion detecting circuit detects a distortion level of the output signal. The gain determining circuit determines the gain used by the amplifying circuit according to the average amplitude and the distortion level.

Abstract: A wireless communication system includes a channel estimation circuit, a shortening circuit, a time-domain decision feedback equalizer and a coefficient calculation circuit. The channel estimation circuit generates an estimated channel pulse response according to a received signal. The shortening circuit defines a shortened impulse response from the estimated channel impulse response according to a main energy distribution region of the estimated channel impulse response. The time-domain decision feedback equalizer performs time-domain equalization on the received signal, and includes a feedforward filter for filtering the received signal. The coefficient calculation circuit calculates, according to the shortened impulse response, a set of feed-forward filter coefficients to be utilized by the feedforward filter.

Abstract: A signal receiving apparatus includes a signal processing circuit, an adjacent-channel interference (ACI) filter and an ACI detecting circuit. The signal processing circuit performs a signal processing process on an input signal to generate a processed signal. The ACI filter filters out ACI from the processed signal to generate a filtered signal. The ACI detecting circuit detects an energy difference between the processed signal and the filtered signal, and provides the energy difference to the signal processing circuit as a reference for adjusting the signal processing process.

Abstract: An equalizer apparatus includes a feedforward filter, a slicer circuit and a feedback circuit. The feedforward filter processes an input signal. The slicer circuit includes a Viberbi decoding circuit coupled to the feedforward filter, and performs a Viberbi algorithm based decision operation to generate a decision signal according to an output signal of the feedforward filter and a feedback signal of the feedback filter. The feedback filter generates the feedback signal according to the decision result signal.

Abstract: A method for estimating a channel state of an audio/video signal includes: estimating a first response and a second response according to the audio/video signal, wherein the first response corresponds to an echo path and the second response corresponds to a reference path; calculating a plurality of phase differences at a plurality of time points between the first response and the second response; determining whether the echo path is a Doppler path according to the phase differences; and when it is determined that the echo path is the Doppler path, calculating a phase rotation frequency of the Doppler path according to a difference between at least two of the phase differences.

Abstract: A signal detection method detects a digital signal in a channel. The signal detection method includes: performing a power operation and a frequency transformation operation on a signal of the channel to obtain at least one frequency-domain power set; and determining whether the channel carries the digital signal according to the at least one frequency-domain power set.

Abstract: An equalizing apparatus includes a feedforward filter, a soft slicer and a feedback filter. The feedforward filter processes an input signal. The soft slicer performs a soft decision according to an input signal of the feedforward filter and a feedback signal of the feedback filter to generate a decision result signal. The feedback filter generates the feedback signal according to the decision result signal.

Abstract: An equalizer apparatus includes a feedforward filter, a slicer circuit and a feedback circuit. The feedforward filter processes an input signal. The slicer circuit includes a Viberbi decoding circuit coupled to the feedforward filter, and performs a Viberbi algorithm based decision operation to generate a decision signal according to an output signal of the feedforward filter and a feedback signal of the feedback filter. The feedback filter generates the feedback signal according to the decision result signal.

Abstract: An echo discriminating method capable of discriminating whether an echo occurs in a communication channel is provided. The echo discriminating device includes: a channel estimation unit, that receives a baseband signal and generates a plurality of estimated channel responses according to a plurality of subcarriers of the baseband signal; a transforming unit, that transforms the estimated channel responses to generate a plurality of estimated channel frequency responses; a calculating unit, that calculates a representative value of each of the subcarriers to generate a plurality of representative values; a characteristic value generating unit, that generates a characteristic value according to the representative values; and a determining module, that determines whether the echo occurs according to the characteristic value and the representative values to obtain a determination result.

Abstract: An equalizing apparatus includes a feedforward filter, a soft slicer and a feedback filter. The feedforward filter processes an input signal. The soft slicer performs a soft decision according to an input signal of the feedforward filter and a feedback signal of the feedback filter to generate a decision result signal. The feedback filter generates the feedback signal according to the decision result signal.

Abstract: A method for calculating a feed forward equalizer coefficient of a feed forward equalizer in a minimum mean square error decision feedback equalizer (MMSE-DFE) based on a fast transversal recursive least squares (FT-RLS) algorithm is provided. The length of the feed-forward equalizer is LF, which is a positive integer. The method includes an outer iteration having an LF number of iterations. The outer iteration includes an inner iteration having an n number of iterations, where n is an integer between 0 and (LF?2).

Abstract: An echo discriminating method capable of discriminating whether an echo occurs in a communication channel is provided. The echo discriminating device includes: a channel estimation unit, that receives a baseband signal and generates a plurality of estimated channel responses according to a plurality of subcarriers of the baseband signal; a transforming unit, that transforms the estimated channel responses to generate a plurality of estimated channel frequency responses; a calculating unit, that calculates a representative value of each of the subcarriers to generate a plurality of representative values; a characteristic value generating unit, that generates a characteristic value according to the representative values; and a determining module, that determines whether the echo occurs according to the characteristic value and the representative values to obtain a determination result.

Abstract: A method for calculating an error of a sampling clock is provided. The sampling clock is used for sampling a signal to generate a first sample data group and a second sample data group. Each of the first and second sample data groups includes a header having a predetermined sequence. The method includes: performing a correlation operation on the first and second sample data groups with data of the predetermined format to obtain first and second correlation results, respectively; comparing the first and second correlation results to generate a sample data group offset; and generating the error of the sampling clock according to the sample data group offset and a time difference between the first and second sample data groups.