Nxp B.v.

St-ericsson Sa

Andreas Bening

Bernd Uwe Gerhard Elend

Thierry G C Walrant

Frank Heinle

Eckhard Walters

The present application relates to a system hosting a monotonic counter and a method of operating the system. The system comprises a non-volatile memory () for holding a save counter value and a volatile memory () for maintaining a current counter value. The system () is configured during a startup phase to retrieve the saved counter value of the monotonic counter from the non-volatile memory (); to detect whether a previous shutdown of the system () was an uncontrolled shutdown; and to adjust the retrieved counter value in accordance with a step size () provided at the system () in case an previous uncontrolled shutdown is detected.

Monotonic counter and method of operating a monotonic counter

Due to emerging cellular standards, such as UMTS, TDMA and WLAN, there is more and more need for so-called multi-mode mobile phones, i.e. phones which support not only one air interface but at least two. According to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, a simplified synchronization of a plurality of time base units in a receiving station, such as a multi-mode mobile phone, is provided, in which the plurality of time base units is synchronized by performing a calibration of one first time base unit only and then using the calibration for synchronizing the other time base units with the calibrated first time base unit. Since the synchronization of the various time base units can be performed by software, the number of hardware components for synchronization may be significantly reduced.

Synchronization of time base units

The invention relates to a mobile terminal () having a first processing unit (), a first memory device () and SIM card chip () including a second memory device (), the second memory device () is reprogrammable. To provide a low price mobile terminal having reduced components and costs and less power consumption the first memory device () includes terminal independent data stored in the first memory device () before manufacturing of the mobile terminal (), and individual mobile terminal specific data are stored in the second memory device () after manufacturing of the mobile terminal ().

Growing community of inventors

Roethenbach/Peg., Germany

Andreas Bening