Stmicroelectronics S.r.l.

Sgs-thomson Microelectronics S.r.l.

Nadia Serina

Marco Angelo Bianchessi

Sandro Dalle Feste

Marco Angelici

Alessandro Paolo Bramanti

Giovanni Cesura

Fabio Osnato

Francesco Ferrara

Lillo Raia

Marco Cereda

Alessandro Cocci

Danilo Pirola

Andrea Panigada

Pietro Ferrari

Davide Cucchi

Lorenzo Bruno

Davide Sanguinetti

A sample treatment and molecule analysis cartridge is configured to be mounted in a treatment machine vertically. The cartridge has a sample inlet opening, a fluidic inlet, and a fluidic outlet. The cartridge houses an extraction chamber extending vertically from the sample inlet opening and connected to the fluidic inlet; a waste chamber extending vertically, alongside the extraction chamber; and a collector extending along the extraction chamber and the waste chamber and having a smaller height than the extraction chamber and the waste chamber. A fluidic circuit connects together the extraction chamber, the waste chamber, the collector, the fluidic inlet, and the fluidic outlet, and is configured to connect the fluidic outlet to vent openings of the extraction chamber, the waste chamber, and the collector, and to connect the bottom end of the extraction chamber to the fluidic inlet, the waste chamber, and the collector.

Cartridge for sample preparation and molecule analysis, cartridge control machine, sample preparation system and method using the cartridge

An analog-to-digital converter () includes at least one stage () for converting an analog input signal into a digital output signal using a parallel quantizer () comparing the analog input signal with a plurality of threshold values in parallel. The analog-to-digital converter includes, for at least one selected stage (), an estimating circuit () for estimating an analog correction signal indicative of the mean value of a quantization error of the selected stage, and a compensating circuit () for at least partially compensating an offset error of the parallel quantizer () in the selected stage according to the analog correction signal. A method and computing system are also provided.

Analog-to-digital converter with correction of offset errors

A digital circuit generates a phase synchronization signal for a digital input signal coded according to a biphase modulation. The phase synchronization signal is derived from a clock signal having a higher frequency than the maximum switching frequency of the digital input signal. The frequency of the clock signal is divided with a fully digital divider circuit having a non-integer ratio. The divider is self-synchronizing with the input digital signal. Control signals are used to enable or disable switching of the frequency divider. These control signals are generated by two circuits which sample the input signal with the master clock signal and analyze triplets of consecutive sampling values.

Decoding of a biphase modulated bitstream and relative self-synchronizing frequency divider with noninteger ratio

A sigma-delta modulator of second or higher order includes two or more integrating stages, and a comparator connected in cascade to the integration stages. A signal having a logic level &plus;1 is generated when an input signal to the sigma-delta modulator is positive, and a signal having a logic value &minus;1 is generated when the input signal is negative. Regardless of its absolute value, a feedback line includes a low-pass filter and an adder circuit for adding a feedback signal. The signal output by the last of the integrating stages is filtered by the low-pass filter. The sigma-delta modulator further includes a second comparator having an input connected in common to the input of the first comparator and an output connected to an input of the low-pass filter. The second comparator outputs a logic signal having a positive value when the input signal is positive, and outputs a logic signal having a negative value when the input signal is negative. The second comparator also outputs a signal having an increasing logic level when the input signal exceeds one or more predefined thresholds of increasing value.

Stabilization of single loop sigma-delta modulators of a high order

The ratio y(n) of two digital values, respectively a(n) and b(n), representing the n.sup.th elements of two respective sequences of digital input data representing two quantities slowly varying in time, is obtained by computing

Dynamic computation of the ratio between two bitstreams representing

Generation of symmetrical temperature compensated reference voltages in mixed type integrated circuits (digital and analog) having a superior PSRR is provided. Such a circuit includes a voltage-to-current conversion stage of a temperature independent bandgap voltage for producing a differential pair of currents that are applied as inputs to a pair of resistor feedback operational amplifiers. The feedback resistors are integrated in an interlaced form with a resistor employed in the conversion stage so that they have the same thermal gradient. Output of the operational amplifiers provides two temperature compensated low noise symmetrical reference voltages.

Generation of temperature compensated low noise symmetrical reference

A microphone device having input terminals for receiving an input analog signal and output terminals to produce an output digital signal. The microphone device includes a converter circuit having input terminals coupled to the input terminals of the microphone device and an output terminal coupled to the output terminals of the microphone and an output terminal coupled to the output terminals of the microphone device. The device includes an analog input interface having input terminals corresponding to the input terminals of the microphone device and first and second output terminals to produce an amplified analog voltage signal, a converter circuit having first and second input terminals corresponding respectively to the first and the second output terminals of the analog input interface and an output terminal to produce a digital voltage signal and a parallel to serial digital output interface having an input terminal corresponding to the output terminal of the converter circuit and output terminals corresponding to the output terminals of the microphone device. The converter circuit desirably includes a signal modulator circuit having an input terminal coupled to the input terminals of the converter circuit and an output terminal to produce an intermediate digital voltage signal and a signal sampler circuit having an input terminal corresponding to the output terminal of the signal modulator circuit and an output terminal corresponding to the output terminal of the converter circuit.

Digital microphone device

A method of injecting a whitening random signal in a Sigma Delta modulator with a high-pass transfer function of a quantization noise filter of a certain order, for converting a digital audio signal sampled at a certain clock frequency into an analog signal, comprises the steps of generating a flat-spectrum dither signal, filtering the dither signal with a high-pass transfer function of an order higher than the order of the transfer function of the Sigma Delta modulator, and summing the filtered signal to the sampled digital audio signal, quantized by the modulator. The method prevents the occurrence of disturbances that would otherwise occur as a result of intermodulation of subtle colorations observable in the vicinity of the Nyquist frequency. The disclosed hardware implementation of the method adds little to the hardware complexity.

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Castelcovati, Italy

Nadia Serina