Knowles Electronics, Inc.

Jens Tingleff

Claus Erdmann Fürst

Henrik Thomsen

Mohammad Shajaan

Kristian Hansen

Mohammad Sadegh Mohammadi

An integrated circuit connectable to a sensor includes a transconductance element and a current-input analog-to-digital converter (I-ADC). The transconductance element is connectable to the sensor and is configured to generate a current signal representative of an output of the sensor. The I-ADC is configured to sample and quantize the current signal to generate a corresponding digital sensor signal. The I-ADC includes a continuous-time (CT) integrator stage, a discrete-time (DT) integrator stage, and a feedback digital-to-analog converter (FB-DAC). The CT integrator stage is configured to receive the current output and the I-ADC is configured to generate the digital sensor signal based on an output of the CT integrator stage and an output of the DT integrator stage. The FB-DAC is configured to provide a feedback signal based on the digital sensor signal for adding to the current signal.

Multi-rate integrated circuit connectable to a sensor

The present disclosure relates to an integrated circuit comprising a transconductance amplifier which is connectable to a microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) transducer. The transconductance amplifier comprises a first input coupled to a first current conveyor and a second input coupled to a second current conveyor for converting a single-ended or differential transducer signal voltage into an intermediate signal current representative of the transducer signal voltage through a shared reference resistor. The transconductance amplifier further comprises first and second output circuits coupled to the shared reference resistor and being configured to convert the intermediate current signal into a corresponding differential output current signal through first and second output terminals for driving a load.

Transconductance amplifier

A sensor signal processing circuit including a delta-sigma analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and a control circuit is disclosed. The circuit is configured to adaptively activate one or more segments of current elements for sequential sampling periods based on a digital signal input to a DAC, wherein less than N current elements are allocated to each segment, each current element in an active segment is enabled and either contributes to a feedback signal of the DAC or does not contribute to the feedback signal, and current elements not in an active segment are disabled. The circuit can be integrated with an acoustic or other sensor as part of a sensor assembly.

Sensor assembly and electrical circuit therefor

A microphone assembly comprising: a housing including a base, a cover, and a sound port; a MEMS transducer element disposed in the housing, the transducer element configured to convert sound into a microphone signal voltage at a transducer output; and a processing circuit. The processing circuit comprising a transconductance amplifier comprising an input node connected to the transducer output for receipt of the microphone signal voltage, the transconductance amplifier being configured to generate an amplified current signal representative of the microphone signal voltage in accordance with a predetermined transconductance of the transconductance amplifier; and an analog-to-digital converter comprising an input node connected to receive the amplified current signal, said analog-to-digital converter being configured to sample and quantize the amplified current signal to generate a corresponding digital microphone signal.

Growing community of inventors

Copenhagen, Denmark

Jens Tingleff