Infineon Technologies Ag

Ilie-Ionut Cristea

Dan-Alexandru Mocanu

Radu Mihaescu

Adrian Finney

Andrei Cobzaru

Bogdan-Eugen Matei

Dorin Ioan Mohai

Bogdan Bumbacea

A vehicle system includes a vehicle controller configured to detect a parking mode of a vehicle and generate a low-power command based on detecting the parking mode; a collision monitoring system; and a communication interface. The collision monitoring system includes a sensor controller configured to receive the low-power command via the communication interface, enter into a low-power mode, and set the communication interface into an idle communication mode during the low-power mode; a sensor configured to generate a sensor signal based on a measured property; and a processing circuit configured to compute, during the low-power mode, a derivative measurement at a plurality of sampling times based on the sensor signal, and compare each instance of the derivative measurement to a threshold. The sensor controller is configured to transmit a wake-up command to the vehicle controller via the communication interface based on the derivative measurement satisfying the threshold.

Air bag sensor for vehicle protection during parking mode

A pressure sensor module includes a pressure sensor configured to periodically measure an internal air pressure within an enclosure and generate a sensor signal having plurality of sensor values; a signal processing chain for conditioning the sensor signal to generate a plurality of conditioned sensor values; a memory configured to store each of the plurality of conditioned sensor values; and a processing circuit coupled to the pressure sensor via the signal processing chain for receiving a current conditioned sensor value and coupled to the memory for receiving a previous conditioned sensor value. The processing circuit is configured monitor for a fault, including calculating a delta pressure value between the current and previous conditioned sensor values, comparing the delta pressure value to a pressure threshold value, and triggering a diagnostic of the signal processing chain if the delta pressure value is greater than the pressure threshold value.

Automatic decision for self-diagnosis triggering in safety relevant sensors

A sensor device includes a pressure sensor configured to measure an internal air pressure and generate a sensor signal representative of the measured internal air pressure; a serial peripheral interface (SPI) configured to receive SPI commands; a wake-up terminal configured to output fault signals; and a processing circuit. The processing circuit is configurable between a normal running mode and a low power monitoring (LPM) mode. In LPM mode, the processing circuit is configured to alternate between a sampling phase during which the processing circuit evaluates the sensor signal and a powered-down phase during which the processing circuit is in a low power state. The processing circuit is configured to monitor for at least one SPI communication fault corresponding to information received on the SPI, generate a communication fault signal in response to detecting the at least one SPI communication fault, and output the communication fault signal from the wake-up terminal.

Error signaling on a separate output pin of a battery monitoring system

A semiconductor device comprises a semiconductor substrate doped with dopants of a first type and a vertical transistor composed of one or more transistor cells. Each transistor cell has a first region formed in the substrate and doped with dopants of a second type, and the first regions form first pn-junctions with the surrounding substrate. At least a first well region is formed in the substrate and doped with dopants of a second type to form a second pn-junction with the substrate. The first well region is electrically connected to the first regions of the vertical transistor via a semiconductor switch. The semiconductor device comprises a detection circuit, which is integrated in the substrate and configured to detect whether the first pn-junctions are reverse biased. The switch is opened when the first pn-junctions are reverse biased and the switch is closed when the first pn-junctions are not reverse biased.

Growing community of inventors

Turnu Magurele, Romania

Ilie-Ionut Cristea