Sony United Kingdom Limited

Mirics Semiconductor Limited

Anthony Eaton

Simon Atkinson

Dan Budin

Keith Ahluwalia

Simon Denny

An interface circuit configured to connect between (a) a broadcast receiver tuner and associated circuitry for the receiving and processing of broadcast radio frequency signals, and (b) a general purpose computer device programmed with software demodulation code configured to engage a general purpose processor in signal demodulation functions, the interface circuit comprising: a data interface comprising a packetisation buffer connected to receive (i) digital signal sample data from a signal path of the tuner and associated circuitry and (ii) indications of control settings which are applied to one or more configurable components during taking of the sample data, said packetisation buffer being operable to construct packets comprising blocks of sample data and header information carrying said control settings indications; a control interface configured to receive control instructions from tuner control code running on the general purpose computer device; and a microcontroller operable to receive the control instructions from the control interface and distribute corresponding control settings to configurable components of the tuner and associated circuitry, said microcontroller also being operable to supply indications of relevant control settings to said packetisation buffer.

Broadcast receiver system

To effect power control of a power amplifierhaving three amplifier stagesandused to amplify input signals modulated in accordance with a variable envelope modulation scheme, there is used a power amplifierhaving a gain which reduces as the supply voltage to the power amplifierreduces, and the output power Pof the power amplifieris controlled by regulation of the supply voltage V. Taking advantage of the reduction in gain of the power amplifier, it is ensured that, in respect of each respective amplifier stageandand at each respective value of the supply voltage in the voltage control range, the output power Pof the respective amplifier stageandis less than the saturation output power Pof the respective amplifier stageand. As a result, distortion of the signal is reduced. The power control technique improves efficiency over known techniques of backing off the output power and using a variable gain amplifier stage to control the output power.

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Hook, United Kingdom

Anthony Eaton