Marvellworld Trade Ltd.

Stmicroelectronics S.r.l.

Marvell International Limited

Bruno Marcone

Francesco Rezzi

Giorgio Chiozzi

Alberto Ressia

Giuseppe Santillo

Giuseppe Alfieri

An apparatus includes a first circuit configured to generate a boost voltage, and a second circuit to control a slope of a magnitude of the boost voltage when the magnitude of the boost voltage is reduced. The first circuit is configured to generate the boost voltage having the magnitude equal to a first voltage when a control signal is in a first state, and reduce the magnitude of the boost voltage when the control signal is in a second state and the magnitude of the boost voltage is greater than a second voltage which is less than the first voltage. A method of providing a boost voltage includes controlling a slope of a magnitude of the boost voltage when the magnitude of the boost voltage is decreased.

Adaptive boost supply with slope control

To limit motion in an electromechanical system, an input signal is filtered using an adaptive filter, such as an infinite impulse response filter, to yield a predicted motion, and the input signal is attenuated by an amount controlled by the predicted motion. The filtering may further yield a predicted temperature, and the amount of attenuating may be further controlled by that temperature. Components of the input signal at selected frequencies may be removed, and a portion of the input signal from which the components have been removed may be mixed with a portion of the input signal from which components have not been removed. The removing of components at selected frequencies may include applying a notch filter, and the two portions may be equalized. phase-adjusting the unfiltered portion to account for phase delay introduced by the notch filter. The notch filter may operate at a resonant frequency of the system.

Method and circuitry for protecting an electromechanical system

Implementations of a class-D amplifier can be used to amplify an input analog signal and provide to a load a multilevel amplified signal having an amplitude larger than a voltage level of a power source used by the class-D amplifier.

Multilevel class-D amplifiers

A short-circuit protection circuit, particularly for power transistors, contains a first circuit for mirroring the output current of a power transistor which is parallel-connected to the power transistor, and a second mirroring circuit which is series-connected to the first mirroring means and is adapted to emit a current which is correlated to the current mirrored by the first mirroring circuit, for comparison with a reference current. The result of the comparison determines the need to intervene or not on the power transistor. The short-circuit protection circuit may also contain a circuit for sensing the voltage drop across the power transistor which is parallel-connected to the power transistor and to the first mirroring circuit, in order to adjust minimum and maximum values of the current in output from the power transistor, as a function of the voltage that is present across the transistor.

Growing community of inventors

Mezzanino, Italy

Bruno Marcone