Apple Inc.

Intel Mobile Communications Gmbh

Infineon Technologies Ag

Intel Corporation

Harald Pretl

Rastislav Vazny

Joonhoi Hur

Werner Schelmbauer

Krzysztof Dufrene

Andreas Menkhoff

Bernhard Sogl

Jochen Schrattenecker

Patrick Ossmann

Bin Xiao

Andre Hanke

Christof Pfannenmüller

Dominic Koehler

Christian Mayer

Aly Ismail

Hans Pletzer

Andreas Langer

Bernd Adler

Jan M Zaleski

Oliver Georg Dorn

Josef Holzleitner

Björn Lenhart

Lucas Calderin

Dieter Pimingsdorfer

Ehrentraud Hager

Christian F Tanzer

Julian W Zuber

Bjoern Lenhart

Burkhard Neurauter

Michael Wilhelm

Peter Preyler

Andreas Mayer

Ram S Kanumalli

Wolfgang Thomann

Volker Neubauer

Silvester Sadjina

Claus Stöger

Robert-Grant Irvine

Damir Hamidovic

Svetozar Broussev

Oren E Avraham

Jose Pedro Diogo Faisca Moreira

Joerg Fuhrmann

Bernhard Heigelmayer

Guenther Haberpeuntner

Claus Stoeger

Thomas Greifeneder

Andreas Puerstinger

An electronic device may include a processor and wireless circuitry with transmit and receive antennas. Radar circuitry may use the transmit and receive antennas to perform spatial ranging on external objects farther than a threshold distance (e.g., 1-2 cm) from the transmit antenna. The wireless circuitry may include a voltage standing wave ration (VSWR) sensor coupled to the transmit antenna to detect the presence of objects within the threshold distance from the transmit antenna. This may serve to cover a blind spot for the radar circuitry near to the transmit antenna. The VSWR sensor may gather background VSWR measurements when other wireless performance metric data for the wireless circuitry is within a predetermined range of satisfactory values. The background VSWR measurements may be subtracted from real time VSWR measurements to perform accurate and robust ultra-short range object detection near to the transmit antenna.

Electronic devices with background-cancelled ultra short range object detection

An electronic device may include wireless circuitry with a transmit antenna that transmits signals and a receive antenna that receives reflected signals. The wireless circuitry may detect a range between the device and an external object based on the transmitted signals and the reflected signals. When the range exceeds a first threshold, the wireless circuitry may use the transmitted signals and received signals to record background noise. When the range is less than a second threshold value, the wireless circuitry may detect the range based on the reflected signals and the recorded background noise. This may allow the range to be accurately measured within an ultra-short range domain even when the device is placed in different device cases, placed on different surfaces, etc.

Background noise recorder

This disclosure provides techniques for impedance matching. A radio frequency (RF) device includes a power detector to determine a transmitter leakage and a post-processing unit to determine a receiver leakage, and determines if isolation is acceptable based on the leakages. The RF device may include a device for measuring antenna impedance. Otherwise, the RF device may select multiple tuner settings (e.g., capacitor values) for test signals to be transmitted and received at a target frequency, determine multiple sets of leakage values, determine multiple reflection coefficients based on the multiple sets of leakage values, and determine an estimated antenna impedance at the target frequency based on the reflection coefficients. The RF device then determines impedance tuner settings based on the measured or estimated antenna impedance. Alternatively, the RF device determines impedance tuner settings using an inverse machine-learning model based on a determined matching impedance.

Machine-learning based tuning algorithm for duplexer systems

An integrated circuit may include oscillator circuitry having a resonator formed from fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) devices. The resonator may include drive cells of alternating polarities and sense cells interposed between the drive cells. The resonator may be connected in a feedback loop within the oscillator circuitry. The oscillator circuitry may include an amplifier having an input coupled to the sense cells and an output coupled to the drive cells. The oscillator circuitry may also include a separate inductor and capacitor based oscillator, where the resonator serves as a separate output filter stage for the inductor and capacitor based oscillator.

Oscillator with fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) resonator

A differential double balanced duplexer (dDBD) includes a transmitter and a first balun are coupled to a first impedance tuner that produces a first impedance that blocks received signals at a first frequency range from travelling across the first balun and into the transmitter, and a second impedance that passes transmitted signals at a second frequency range to travel across the first balun to the antenna. The dDBD also includes a receiver and a second balun coupled to a second impedance tuner that produces a first impedance that allows the received signals at the first frequency range to travel across the second balun and into the receiver, and a second impedance that blocks the transmitted signals at the second frequency range from travelling across the second balun and into the receiver. As such, the dDBD allows for increased isolation and decreased insertion loss.

Differential double balanced duplexer

An electronic device may include isolation circuitry coupled between a transmitter, a receiver, and one or more antennas. The isolation circuitry may include a 90 degree hybrid coupler configured receive a transmission (TX) signal from the transmitter, split the TX signal into a first portion and a second portion, and phase-shift a portion such that the portions are +90 degrees out-of-phase. The isolation circuitry may include phase shifters that phase-shift the portions such that the portions are in-phase prior to propagating to the antenna. The phase shifters may receive a first portion and a second portion of a receiver (RX) signal from splitter circuitry. The phase shifters may phase-shift the portions such that the portions are out-of-phase by −90 degrees. The 90 degree hybrid coupler may phase-shift the first portion and/or the second portion such that the portions are in-phase and constructively combine prior to propagating to the receiver.

Duplexer architecture using 90 degree hybrid coupler based balancing conditions

Systems and methods combine a test signal with a wanted (downlink or uplink) signal at an input of a duplexer of a communication device, and receive the test signal at an output of the duplexer. The test signal may include a radio frequency signal having less power than the wanted signal to avoid interference, or a digital signal that is added to or extracted from the wanted signal when the wanted signal does not have a radio frequency. A processor of the communication device causes the duplexer to operate in a tuning state (e.g., to transmit signals having a transmission frequency and receive signals having a receive frequency). The measurement system determines a difference or ratio in power between the test signal at the duplexer output and the duplexer input, and adjusts the tuning state based on the difference or ratio (e.g., to decrease or minimize the difference or ratio).

Duplexer measurement and tuning systems

Embodiments disclosed herein relate to improving an available bandwidth for a transceiver of an electronic device and to reducing a footprint of an associated integrated circuit of the electronic device. To do so, an isolation circuit is disposed between a transmit circuit and a receive circuit. The isolation circuit has first and second signal paths. A first portion of the signal propagates along the first signal path and a second portion of the signal propagates along the second signal path. A non-reciprocal phase shifter is disposed on the first signal path to shift a phase of the first portion to match a phase of the second portion and improve isolation between the transmit circuit and the receive circuit. The phase-shifted first portion may be combined with the second portion to reduce or substantially eliminate an insertion loss caused by the isolation circuit.

Full-duplex electrical balanced duplexer

An integrated circuit may include a resonator formed from FinFET devices. The resonator may include drive cells of alternating polarities and sense cells interposed between the drive cells. Each of the drive cells may include at least two drive transistors having fins coupled to a drive terminal. Each sense cell may include two sense transistors having one fin coupled to a sense terminal and another fin coupled to ground. Adjacent drive and sense cells may be separated by an intervening region that can accommodate a number of fins. Configured in this way, the resonator can exhibit a high quality factor, low phase noise, and can operate at a frequency that is less than the characteristic resonant frequency as defined by the fin pitch of the drive and sense transistors.

Fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) resonator

A method and apparatus for cancelling an interference in a received signal. The apparatus may include a plurality of receivers and one or more transmitters. The first receiver is configured to process a received signal. The first receiver includes a mixer to down-convert the received signal using a first local oscillator signal having a first frequency. The received signal includes a wanted signal and an unwanted signal. The second receiver is configured to process the received signal and generate an interference reference signal. The second receiver includes a mixer to down-convert the received signal using a second local oscillator signal having a second frequency. The apparatus includes an interference canceller configured to cancel, in a digital domain, at least in part interference caused by non-linear characteristics of the first receive chain in a presence of the unwanted signal from the down-converted received signal by the first receive chain.

Method and apparatus for cancelling interference in a transceiver

Growing community of inventors

Schwertberg, Austria

Harald Pretl