Patents by Inventor Christian Bock

Christian Bock 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: 8064545
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and/or a device for determining a constellation from a plurality of possible constellations with a constellation identification device which is used to determine the constellation of the signal from a plurality of possible constellations. This is advantageously achieved when a converter is arranged to convert the signal into polar coordinates provided with a radial component, and to provide a radius as a radial component of the signal, wherein the constellation identification device is constructed so as to determine the constellation of the signal from the radius.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 16, 2008
    Date of Patent: November 22, 2011
    Assignee: Trident Microsystems (Far East) Ltd.
    Inventor: Christian Bock
  • Patent number: 8031812
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and a circuit arrangement for deciding a symbol upon the reception of a signal including or coupled with a quadrature signal pair, wherein the decision is made by means of an analysis of the metric of at least one reception point to at least one nominal point in a complex coordinate space, and the metric is analyzed in the non-Cartesian or not exclusively Cartesian complex coordinate space. The decision is made after the analysis, and during the decision process, a second most probable nominal point and a reliability of the decision are determined.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 21, 2007
    Date of Patent: October 4, 2011
    Assignee: Trident Microsystems (Far East) Ltd.
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Stefan Keller
  • Patent number: 7738599
    Abstract: In a quadrature amplitude (QAM) demodulator, an auxiliary symbol may be utilized in place of the decision symbol to adjust the decision-feedback loops within the demodulator. For the formation and definition of the auxiliary symbol, the radius and angle information of the received signal or of the preliminary symbol may be used. Through use of the auxiliary symbol instead of the decision symbol, any error in the angle information due to the unknown frequency and phase deviation of the local oscillator may be ignored. An auxiliary symbol generator may be provided which, instead of assigning to the received signal an element from the predetermined symbol alphabet, generates an auxiliary symbol that lies on the most probable one of the nominal radii. Nominal radii may mean those radii on which in QAM the predetermined symbols of the alphabet lie in the plane determined by the quadrature signal pair. For the angle component of the auxiliary symbol, the angle information of the sampled digital signal may be used.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2003
    Date of Patent: June 15, 2010
    Assignee: Trident Microsystems (Far East) Ltd.
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Carsten Noeske, Miodrag Temerinac
  • Patent number: 7711073
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and a circuit arrangement for determining the carrier frequency difference during the demodulating of received symbols (P1, P2) in the complex phase space (I, Q; R, ?) of a quadrature modulation method (QAM), wherein to determine the frequency the received symbols are compared with symbols (S1, S2) at nominal positions in the complex signal space. In order to make the determination independent of a rotation of the coordinate system of the received signals with respect to the coordinate system of the symbols, it is proposed to determine the angle (?(P1, P2)) between two received signal values (P1, P2) and compare it to possible nominal angles of the quadrature modulation method. An angle deviation between the determined angle of the received signal values and the nominal angle can be used as a direct measure of a frequency deviation (?f).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 12, 2005
    Date of Patent: May 4, 2010
    Assignee: Trident Microsystems (Far East) Ltd.
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Carsten Noeske
  • Patent number: 7675998
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for determining the sampling instant of a clock signal (ti) for a circuit for determining symbols (Se) from a digitized signal (sd, S) which is coupled to at least one quadrature signal pair of a modulation method (QAM), wherein the digitized signal is converted to polar signal coordinates (R, ?) with a radial component (R).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 22, 2005
    Date of Patent: March 9, 2010
    Assignee: Trident Microsystems (Far East) Ltd.
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Franz-Otto Witte, Carsten Noeske
  • Publication number: 20090220024
    Abstract: The invention relates to a FM simulcast broadcast signal, in which an analogue and digital signal are combined for a transmission in a transmission channel with limited bandwidth as a total signal (s), which has a first phase speed (vs), an auxiliary signal (hs) is prepared in the complex region from the modulated digital signal (ds) for transmission and the FM modulated analogue signal (as) for transmission, which has a second phase speed (vas). Said auxlliary signal (hs) is placed in an used or at least largely unused frequency range of the digital signal (ds). The total signal (s) for transmission comprises the auxiliary signal (hs) and the FM modulated digital signal (ds) and the first phase speed (vs) of the total signal (s) corresponds at least approximately to the second phase speed (vas) of the analogue signal (as).
    Type: Application
    Filed: March 5, 2007
    Publication date: September 3, 2009
    Applicant: MICRONAS GMBH
    Inventors: Carsten Noeske, Christian Bock
  • Publication number: 20090135967
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and a circuit system for deciding a symbol (S) upon reception of received symbols coupled with a quadrature signal pair (I, Q). For deciding a symbol upon reception of an input signal using received symbols (S) coupled with a quadrature signal pair, wherein phase noise (PN) and Gaussian noise (GN) are superimposed on at least one such received symbol, the phase noise (PN) as well as the Gaussian noise (GN) are determined or estimated for at least one such received symbol (S). This is advantageously achieved by the fact that when the phase noise (PN) and the Gaussian noise (GN) are determined or estimated, a differentiation is made between the phase noise (PN) and the Gaussian noise, and a result of the differentiating determination or estimation is used for controlling reception parameters for decisions concerning subsequently received symbols (S). In particular, the measured values of the phase noise (PN) are orthogonalized to the Gaussian noise (GN).
    Type: Application
    Filed: November 21, 2008
    Publication date: May 28, 2009
    Applicant: MICRONAS GmbH
    Inventor: Christian Bock
  • Publication number: 20080225992
    Abstract: The invention relates to a device and a method for determining a symbol during reception of a signal coupled with a quadrature signal pair having a discriminator for the determination of a symbol with an analysis of a received signal in complex coordinate space, and a control loop for QAM frequency control and/or rotation control while control parameters are used, which are constructed and/or controlled depending on at least one of the symbols to be decided by the discriminator so that the control parameters are adjusted for decisions to be taken later, wherein one weighting device is constructed and/or controlled, providing in each case one weighting value for the symbols to be decided and/or decided by the discriminator among a plurality of weighting values depending on the symbol position in the complex coordinate space for the control loop.
    Type: Application
    Filed: December 28, 2007
    Publication date: September 18, 2008
    Applicant: MICRONAS GmbH
    Inventor: Christian Bock
  • Publication number: 20080225973
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and/or a device for determining a constellation from a plurality of possible constellations with a constellation identification device which is used to determine the constellation of the signal from a plurality of possible constellations. This is advantageously achieved when a converter is arranged to convert the signal into polar coordinates provided with a radial component, and to provide a radius as a radial component of the signal, wherein the constellation identification device is constructed so as to determine the constellation of the signal from the radius.
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 30, 2008
    Publication date: September 18, 2008
    Applicant: MICRONAS GmbH
    Inventor: Christian Bock
  • Patent number: 7408491
    Abstract: An analog-to-digital converter circuit arrangement comprising an analog-to-digital converter that receives an analog input signal and provides a digital output signal. A correction device that corrects the digital output signal using multidimensional correction coefficients indicative of a characteristic of the analog-to-digital converter to be compensated for, and provides a corrected digital output signal indicative thereof.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 23, 2007
    Date of Patent: August 5, 2008
    Assignee: Micronas GmbH
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Miodrag Tereminac
  • Publication number: 20080112509
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for determining the sampling instant of a clock signal (ti) for a circuit for determining symbols (Se) from a digitized signal (sd, S) which is coupled to at least one quadrature signal pair of a modulation method (QAM), wherein the digitized signal is converted to polar signal coordinates (R, ?) with a radial component (R). In order to implement an optimization of the sampling instant independently of the frequency or phase offset of the carrier control on which the symbols depend, it is proposed that the rate-of-occurrence distribution of the signals over the radii, which are assigned to the modulation method within the complex plane, be considered at different sampling phases (?i, ?i2) as the quality value (G, G*), and that the better quality value be selected from among the multiple rate-of-occurrence determinations. The variation of the sampling phase assigned to this value is subsequently employed to correct the sampling clock signal (ti).
    Type: Application
    Filed: April 22, 2005
    Publication date: May 15, 2008
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Franz-Otto Witte, Carsten Noeske
  • Patent number: 7355374
    Abstract: A DC voltage transformer includes an oscillator, which can be controlled in terms of a characteristic such as its phase and/or frequency, and a modulation circuit that provides a periodic or random control signal to the oscillator. A power switch is connected in series with an inductance between two power supply potentials, the power switch being switched between open and closed states. A first smoothing capacitor is connected directly between the two power supply potentials, and a second smoothing capacitor is arranged in series with a Zener diode, with both the capacitor and diode being connected in parallel with the main terminals of the power switch. A modulated reference signal form the oscillator is connected to the control input of the power switch. The modulation of the reference signal can be of any type, for example a periodic modulation that is a periodic variation of the phase and/or the period of the reference signal made possible by for example a sine wave.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 29, 2005
    Date of Patent: April 8, 2008
    Assignee: MICRONAS GmbH
    Inventors: Franz-Otto Witte, Christian Bock
  • Publication number: 20080056412
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and a circuit arrangement for deciding a symbol upon the reception of a signal including or coupled with a quadrature signal pair, wherein the decision is made by means of an analysis of the metric of at least one reception point to at least one nominal point in a complex coordinate space, and the metric is analyzed in the non-Cartesian or not exclusively Cartesian complex coordinate space. The decision is made after the analysis, and during the decision process, a second most probable nominal point and a reliability of the decision are determined.
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 21, 2007
    Publication date: March 6, 2008
    Applicant: MICRONAS GmbH
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Stefan Keller
  • Publication number: 20070188365
    Abstract: An analog-to-digital converter circuit arrangement comprising an analog-to-digital converter that receives an analog input signal and provides a digital output signal. A correction device that corrects the digital output signal using multidimensional correction coefficients indicative of a characteristic of the analog-to-digital converter to be compensated for, and provides a corrected digital output signal indicative thereof.
    Type: Application
    Filed: January 23, 2007
    Publication date: August 16, 2007
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Miodrag Tereminac
  • Patent number: 7196645
    Abstract: To compensate for errors during the conversion of an analog input signal into a digital output signal in an analog-to-digital converter (ADC), an error of the digital output signal is corrected during operation of the ADC by a compensation device that utilizes stored correction values. The stored correction values may be changed in a predetermined manner or statistically by a certain magnitude. The particular changed correction value may be adopted if a quality criterion of the corrected output signal becomes better than the previous value, or may be rejected if the quality criterion of the corrected output signal becomes worse than the previous value. In the latter case, the respective original correction value is again placed in the table of correction values. In this way, a quasi-adaptive adjustment of the correction data is implemented during the operation of the device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 11, 2005
    Date of Patent: March 27, 2007
    Assignee: Micronas GmbH
    Inventor: Christian Bock
  • Publication number: 20060153389
    Abstract: A three-dimensional sound system includes a wireless audio signal transmission method for transmitting audio signals between a transmitting device and a spatially adjacent receiving device associated with an audio signal reproduction device such as a speaker. The audio signals may be digitized in the transmitting device, compressed, and transmitted by a digital high-frequency transmission method as data packets. Symbols may be assigned to the individual data in a quadrature signal plane. A diversity operation takes place between the transmitting device and the receiving device, where the transmitting device has two high-frequency transmitters with quadrature conversion which are each connected to an associated transmission antenna. On the receiver side, each audio signal reproduction device has a receiving device with one receiving antenna and one high-frequency receiver.
    Type: Application
    Filed: June 27, 2003
    Publication date: July 13, 2006
    Applicant: Micronas GmbH
    Inventors: Miodrag Temerinac, Hans Fiesel, Christian Bock
  • Publication number: 20060077081
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method for compensation of errors during the conversion of an analog input signal into a digital output signal in an analog-to-digital converter, wherein an error of the output signal is corrected during normal duty of the analog-to-digital converter by correction values kept in a table. The correction values in the table are varied in a predetermined manner or statistically by a certain magnitude and the particular changed correction value is adopted if one quality criterion of the corrected output signal indicates improvement otherwise the respective original correction value is used once again.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 11, 2005
    Publication date: April 13, 2006
    Inventor: Christian Bock
  • Publication number: 20060018408
    Abstract: In a quadrature amplitude (QAM) demodulator, an auxiliary symbol may be utilized in place of the decision symbol to adjust the decision-feedback loops within the demodulator. For the formation and definition of the auxiliary symbol, the radius and angle information of the received signal or of the preliminary symbol may be used. Through use of the auxiliary symbol instead of the decision symbol, any error in the angle information due to the unknown frequency and phase deviation of the local oscillator may be ignored. An auxiliary symbol generator may be provided which, instead of assigning to the received signal an element from the predetermined symbol alphabet, generates an auxiliary symbol that lies on the most probable one of the nominal radii. Nominal radii may mean those radii on which in QAM the predetermined symbols of the alphabet lie in the plane determined by the quadrature signal pair. For the angle component of the auxiliary symbol, the angle information of the sampled digital signal may be used.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 8, 2003
    Publication date: January 26, 2006
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Carsten Noeske, Miodrag Temerinac
  • Publication number: 20050254602
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and a circuit arrangement for determining the carrier frequency difference during the demodulating of received symbols (P1, P2) in the complex phase space (I, Q; R, ?) of a quadrature modulation method (QAM), wherein to determine the frequency the received symbols are compared with symbols (S1, S2) at nominal positions in the complex signal space. In order to make the determination independent of a rotation of the coordinate system of the received signals with respect to the coordinate system of the symbols, it is proposed to determine the angle (?(P1, P2)) between two received signal values (P1, P2) and compare it to possible nominal angles of the quadrature modulation method. An angle deviation between the determined angle of the received signal values and the nominal angle can be used as a direct measure of a frequency deviation (?f).
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 12, 2005
    Publication date: November 17, 2005
    Inventors: Christian Bock, Carsten Noeske
  • Publication number: 20050249314
    Abstract: The invention relates to a method and a circuit arrangement for deciding a symbol upon reception of a signal coupled with a quadrature signal pair, wherein the decision is made through analysis of the distance between at least one reception point and at least one nominal point in the complex space. In order to improve the pull-in regions or decision regions in the case of higher-quality modulation methods even in the region of larger radii, it is proposed that the distance be analyzed in the non-Cartesian or not exclusively Cartesian complex phase space, the complex signal being transformed for distance analysis in the preferably polar coordinate space (R, ?) as non-Cartesian complex phase space.
    Type: Application
    Filed: September 27, 2004
    Publication date: November 10, 2005
    Inventor: Christian Bock