Asulab S.a.

Ebauches S.a.

Jean-Pierre Wattenhofer

Pierre-Andre Farine

Jean-Jacques Born

Freddy Huguenin

Fr&eacute;d&eacute;ric Meylan

Marcel Thoenig

The present invention concerns a portable object such as, in particular, a timepiece ( ) including means for controlling at least an electronic function such as an horological function, these control means including at least a touch-sensitive key ( ) for selecting the desired electronic function, characterized in that the control means further include a strain gauge ( ) allowing the selection of the desired electronic function to be confirmed and/or the electronic function to be activated, the confirmation and/or activation of said electronic function being effected by applying pressure to the portable object via the effect of which the strain gauge ( ) generates a control signal which will be applied to an electronic data processing circuit, said portable object also being able to include means able to emit an acoustic signal to indicate to a user that the desired function has actually been switched on.

Portable object including means for activating an electronic function and method for controlling such an electronic function

The present invention concerns a portable object such as, in particular, a timepiece ( ), including means ( ) for displaying at least one data item and a case ( ) formed of a top portion including a crystal ( ) covering the display means ( ) and a bottom portion delimited by a back cover ( ) located below said display means ( ), this object including a piezoelectric transducer ( ) generating an electric voltage when mechanical pressure is exerted on said top portion, the voltage generated by the piezoelectric transducer ( ) being applied to a first electronic circuit which will generate a logic signal in response to the pressure exerted, this electronic circuit being arranged inside said case ( ), characterized in that said piezoelectric transducer ( ) is arranged in the bottom portion of said case ( ) and is rigidly connected to said case ( ).

Portable object such as, in particular, a timepiece, including a piezoelectric transducer for entering data manually

An autonomous low power consumption electrical apparatus that has a supply device (8) comprising a single photo-voltaic cell, an electrical accumulator (7), and a voltage booster (10, 11, TR1, TR3) connected between the power source (9) and the accumulator for charging the accumulator. The voltage booster is controlled by a pulse signal having a predetermined frequency. To allow the apparatus to start when the accumulator is completely discharged, the pulse signal can be generated, at least temporarily, by an oscillator that can operate at a very low voltage, that is, the voltage of the single photo-voltaic cell. When the apparatus is a timepiece, the oscillator (2) can be replaced by the oscillator of the time-keeping circuit (1) of the timepiece as soon as the accumulator (9) is sufficiently charged.

Electrical apparatus supplied by a photo-voltaic power source

In this booster, the voltage across the terminals of the photovoltaic power source (1) is regulated as a function of a reference voltage (V.sub.ref) which is chosen to be substantially equal to the voltage corresponding to the maximum value of the voltage-power curve of this source. The reference voltage generated in the reference generator (9) is compared to the voltage (V.sub.sc) of the source (1), the result is sampled and influences the duty cycle of a control signal (F.sub.c) applied to the switching transistor (7). The latter is responsible for chopping the current flowing from the source to the load (accumulator 6) through an inductor coil (4) and a diode (5).

Chopper-amplifier for the voltage of a photovoltaic power source, in

An oscillator, such as a ring oscillator, uses CMOS transistors. At least some of the transistors have forward biased, current limited source-tub junctions for lowering the threshold voltages of these transistors. This enables the oscillator to operate at very low supply voltages, and it may be used in an electronic timepiece powered by a single photovoltaic cell.

Low voltage operated oscillator using transistors with forward biased

The counting circuit described issues a numerical information which is a non-linear function of the number of pulses applied to its input. The circuit comprises dividers which divide by integers K.sub.i the pulses applied to their inputs. A first selector connects the output of one of the dividers to the input of a counter in response to a first signal. The content of the counter is compared with numbers k.sub.i by comparators. The output of one of the comparators is connected to a control circuit by a second selector controlled by a second signal issued by the control circuit in response to a comparison signal.

Non-linear counting circuit

The watch, as exemplified by FIG. 6, comprises a motor 9 which drives the hands of a timepiece mechanism and a motor 15 which advances those of a chronographic mechanism. When the timepiece mechanism is in operation, a counter 98 receives every six seconds a pulse which opens a gate 85 which passes a pulse of 32 Hz and causes the shaft of the motor 9 to advance one step. When the stopwatch mechanism is in operation, a counter 78 receives ten pulses per second; every ten pulses it sends a pulse to the motor 15 and drives the chronographic second hand. When the chronographic mechanism is stopped, this second hand shows the seconds of chronometric time, the supplementary tenths of seconds being stored in the counter 78. The state of this counter 78 is compared with the state of an UP-DOWN counter 86 which determines the position of the second hand of the timepiece mechanism. The motor 9 then receives a number of pulses of 32 Hz equal to the numerical difference between the state of the counter 78 and that of the UP-DOWN counter 86. These pulses cause the tenths of a second over and above the last second of the chronometrically measured time, to be indicated by the second hand of the timepiece mechanism.

Chronographic watch

An electronic timepiece with hands 1, 2 has a plurality of auxiliary digital displays 5, 6 and 7 for indicating the same parameter, e.g., the day of the month. Only the digital display not interfering, at a given moment, with the analog time display is activated by a control circuit which decodes which of three sectors a, b and c are occupied by the hands. The display in the unoccupied sector, or one of the two unoccupied sectors, is always selected.

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Neuchatel, Switzerland

Jean-Pierre Wattenhofer