Thomson Licensing

Claude Rambault

Jean-Pierre Bertin

Philippe Minard

Dominique Lo Hine Tong

Anthony Aubin

Marc Louchkoff

Claude Fouque

Denis Crespel

Christian Schahl

Jean-Michel Boulben

Gabriel Matei

The invention relates to a dipole antenna including first and second radiating elements electrically connected via a transition, said first and second elements being associated with a frequency fin a frequency band, a feeding point the feeding point and the reference point being respectively connected to a feeding conductor and a ground conductor of a feeding line, and a balun. The balun is formed by a slot arranged in the first radiating element, said slot having a short circuit at a first end and an open circuit at a second end next to the transition. The feeding point and the reference point are arranged on opposite sides of the slot.

Dipole antenna with integrated balun

The invention relates to a circuit and a method for pairing decoders enabling, with the use of a switch controlled by a processor, to create a communication link successively between a master decoder and each of the slave decoders, without any particular addressing, or cascaded filters.

Device and process for pairing a master decoder and slave decoders and reception system incorporating said device

The invention relates to a receiverof signals and proposes to remedy a non-linearity problem in an amplifierof an integrated tunerA linearity compensation circuitis inserted upline from the tunerThe compensation circuitpresents a characteristic that is the inverse of the characteristic of the low-noise amplifierin order to compensate for the linearity defect.

Receiver including linearity compensation in the receive band

For testing of the appliance, a test adapter is used as an interface, which is inserted into the smart card reader of the appliance. Advantageously, a contact of the smart card reader is used for testing of the appliance, which is not used by the appliance, when operating with a smart card. One of the contacts used for testing of the appliance is in particularly the contact for the programming voltage VPP according to the ISO/IEC 7816-3:1997(E) standard. In a preferred embodiment, the test adapter comprises a serial adapter interface to a RS232 plug, which is coupled to a computer for testing of the appliance. This allows to use the XON/XOFF protocol via two data lines for testing of the appliance. The electronics part of the test adapter is powered via the smart card reader interface, when the test adapter is inserted into the smart card reader of the appliance. The appliance is especially a set-top box or a digital satellite receiver.

Method and test adapter for testing an appliance having a smart card reader

The device, and a respective system, comprises a microcontroller for signal processing and an interface controller for communicating with an IC card, the interface controller being coupled between the microcontroller and the IC card. According to the invention, the device comprises a reset button for resetting the microcontroller in case of a malfunction, the reset button being accessible to a customer, and a reset signal from the reset button simulates an IC card extraction or a card supply voltage shut down. In a special embodiment, the reset signal from the reset button is applied to the microcontroller and to the interface controller, and the signal from the reset button resetting the microcontroller is delayed by a delay circuit with respect to the signal, which resets the interface controller. The signal from the reset button is advantageously combined with the signal from a card presence contact via a logical OR-combination, and then coupled to a card presence input of the interface controller.

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Saint Sulpice la Foret, France

Claude Rambault