Qualcomm Incorporated

Faramarz Sabouri

Ojas Choksi

Rainer Gaethke

Hasnain Lakdawala

Wei Zhuo

Hajir Hedayati

Milad Darvishi

Koushik Krishnan

Jeremy Darren Dunworth

Li-chung Chang

Prashanth Akula

Himanshu Khatri

Koorosh Akhavan

RaviKiran Gopalan

James Young Hurt

Alberto Cicalini

Angelica Wong

Thinh Nguyen

Eunmo Kang

Joung Won Park

Janakiram Ganesh Sankaranarayanan

Bin Fan

Bassel Hanafi

Amin Jahanian

Eugene Yang

Haritha Eachempatti

Paul DenBoer

An N-path filter with one or more branches selectively coupled to a shared circuit node includes a first branch having a first feedback path and a second feedback path. The first feedback path includes a Miller amplifier having an input coupled to an input voltage and a first capacitor coupled to both the input voltage and an output of the Miller amplifier. The second feedback path includes a node in common with the first feedback path. The second feedback path also includes a first high pass filter coupled to the output of the Miller amplifier and a second capacitor coupled to both the first capacitor and the first high pass filter.

High order miller N-path filter

Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide an N-path filter implemented using a generalized impedance converter (GIC) circuit. The GIC circuit is configured such that the N-path filter has a desired frequency response, which may include a wide passband with steeper rejection than a conventional N-path filter with only a single pole in each filter path. Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide an N-path filter having a frequency response with multiple concurrent passbands. In certain aspects, the N-path filter with multiple passbands is implemented using the GIC circuit. In other aspects, the N-path filter may include a bandpass response circuit where an inductance of the bandpass response circuit may be implemented using gyrators.

High rejection wideband bandpass N-path filter

Techniques for calculating a real power delivered to a transmit load of a transceiver. In an aspect, two distinct voltages are sampled from a matching network coupling the transmit load to an amplifier output. The voltages are coupled by configurable coupling elements to the down-conversion mixers of the transceiver, and are subsequently converted to digital form for processing by a baseband processor. The baseband processor may calculate a coefficient relating the calculated real power to an actual power delivered to the load. The coefficient may be stored and subsequently applied to a transmit element during normal signal transmission by the transceiver. Note the coupling elements may be configured to decouple the sampled voltages from the down-conversion mixers during normal signal reception by the transceiver, thus avoiding unnecessary loading on the receive signal path.

Integrated real power detector

Certain aspects of the present disclosure provide N-path filters with wider passbands and steeper rejection than conventional N-path filters with only a single pole in each filter path. These N-path filters also have a flatter passband with decreased passband droop. One example N-path filter generally includes a plurality of branches selectively connected with a common node, each branch of the N-path filter comprising a switch connected in series with an impedance comprising a common drain amplifier circuit. In certain aspects, the amplifier circuit may include a degeneration circuit for stability and/or a poly-phase feedback circuit to reduce in-band peaking.

N-path filters with flatter frequency response

Techniques for improving performance of a transformer shared amongst a plurality of operating modes. In an aspect, first and second primary windings of a transformer are coupled to an AC ground voltage. Primary windings are mutually coupled to a secondary winding of the transformer. To render the second primary winding inactive, e.g., when operating in a first mode, a switch coupling the second primary winding to the common reference voltage is opened. Similarly, when it is desired to render the first primary winding inactive, e.g., when operating in a second mode, a switch coupling the first primary winding to the common reference voltage is opened. In this manner, the inactive primary winding advantageously does not load the secondary winding. Further aspects provide for, e.g., extending the techniques to more than two modes, and alternative techniques to mutually couple the signal from the primary to the secondary winding.

Port isolation in shared transformers

An NFC initiator device requests a passive communication mode by modulating a request onto a first carrier signal. In response thereto, the target device transmits a second carrier signal while still receiving the first carrier signal from the initiator device. The target device may modulate data onto the second carrier signal to convey information to the initiator device. The initiator device may detect changes in the load provided by the target device to interpret the data conveyed by the target device.

Direct power transmission load modulation in near field communication devices

An apparatus including: at least one differential amplifier configured to amplify a radio frequency signal; a mixer configured to mix the radio frequency signal from the at least one differential amplifier with a local oscillator signal; and a low-pass filter coupled to the mixer, the low-pass filter includes a capacitor and at least one variable resistor configured to tune the low-pass filter.

Sawless architecture for receivers

An apparatus including: at least one receiver having injection points and having at least an amplifier and a transformer; and a plurality of isolation switches coupled to injection points of the at least one receiver, the plurality of isolation switches configured to route a calibration signal generated by a transmitter to one of the injection points.

On-chip linearity calibration

Systems, methods, and devices for wireless communication are included herein. An aspect of the subject matter described in the disclosure provides a device configured to detect a transmission. The device includes a receiver configured to receive an inductive communication signal having a center frequency. The device further includes an analog-to-digital converter configured to sample the signal at a rate higher than twice the center frequency. The device further includes one or more processors configured to digitally downconvert the signal. The processors are further configured to compare an energy of the downconverted signal to a detection threshold. The device further includes a transmitter configured to selectively transmit a communication based on the comparison.

Systems and methods for collision avoidance in near-field communications

A near-field communications (NFC) device includes an NFC antenna, a matching network coupled to the NFC antenna, and a transmitter coupled to the matching network. The transmitter applies a signal to the matching network and varies a frequency of the signal. A parameter is measured while varying the frequency of the signal. A peak value of the parameter is identified and compared to a threshold. A communication protocol is initiated in response to a determination that the peak value satisfies the threshold.

Carrier frequency variation for device detection in near-field communications

A method for communication between near field communication (NFC) devices includes generating a transmission signal, an in-phase local oscillator signal, and a quadrature local oscillator signal from edges of an input clock signal. The method further includes mixing a load modulated signal with the in-phase local oscillator signal to generate an in-phase baseband signal. The method further includes mixing the load modulated signal with the quadrature local oscillator signal to generate a quadrature baseband signal. The method further includes adjusting a phase delay of at least one of the in-phase local oscillator signal or the quadrature local oscillator signal in response to a first signal strength of the in-phase baseband signal and a second signal strength of the quadrature baseband signal.

Apparatus and method for reducing phase noise in near field communication device signaling

Techniques for providing a transceiver with a sliding intermediate frequency (IF). In an aspect, a PLL generates a single local oscillator (LO) signal used for both up-conversion by a transmit (TX) signal path and down-conversion by a receive (RX) signal path, wherein the LO frequency is chosen as the TX carrier frequency. As the TX and RX carrier frequencies may generally differ by a variable amount, the RX signal path utilizing the (TX) LO frequency for down-conversion may be characterized as having a 'sliding' IF. To accommodate the sliding IF receiver architecture, specific processing functions such as charge sampling, discrete-time analog band-pass filtering, and sub-sampling analog-to-digital conversion (ADC) are described.

Sliding if transceiver architecture

Hardware interrupt functionality associated with a disable pin may be used to place a near-field communication (NFC) device into various operational modes. For example, various intermediate voltage windows may be defined within an I/O voltage domain and a resistive divider running off an I/O rail may generate multiple reference voltages within the I/O voltage domain. In one embodiment, different comparators may compare voltage on the disable pin to the reference voltages generated with the resistive divider to determine whether the voltage on the disable pin falls within one of the intermediate voltage windows. As such, if a particular comparator determines that the voltage on the disable pin falls within one of the intermediate voltage windows, a control signal may be generated to transition the NFC device into a corresponding operational mode.

Multiple hardware interrupt functionality on near-field communication (NFC)

A near-field communications (NFC) device includes an NFC antenna, a matching network coupled to the NFC antenna, and a transmitter coupled to the matching network. The transmitter applies a signal to the matching network and a capacitance of the matching network is varied. A parameter is measured while varying the capacitance of the matching network and while applying the signal. A peak value of the parameter is identified and compared to a threshold. A communication protocol is initiated in response to a determination that the peak value satisfies the threshold.

Circuit tuning for device detection in near-field communications

A front end parallel resonant switch is disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment, an apparatus includes an inductor and a capacitor configured to couple a first RF transmission to an antenna, and at least one switch configured to connect the inductor to the capacitor to form a matching network when transmitting the first RF transmission from the antenna, and to connect the inductor to capacitor to form a parallel resonant circuit when transmitting a second RF transmission from the antenna.

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Faramarz Sabouri