Patents by Inventor Francois R. Thomas

Francois R. Thomas 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: 4983968
    Abstract: The disclosure pertains to parallel analog-digital converters, the first comparator stage of which give a so-called thermometer scale, formed by a sequence of logic "ones" and logic "zeros". According to the disclosure, a corrector stage is added on in series with the comparator stage. If a comparator of the first stage accidentally gives a logic value opposite that given by the two neighboring comparators, the corrector stages forces the accidentally erroneous value to assume the same value as that the values given by the two neighboring comparators, if and only if these values are equal. The disclosed device can be applied to signal processing ADCs.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 10, 1989
    Date of Patent: January 8, 1991
    Assignee: Thomson Composants Microondes
    Inventors: Truong-Thao Nguyen, Francois R. Thomas