Silicon Laboratories Inc.

Paul Zavalney

Axel Thomsen

Kenneth Wilson Fernald

Brian Taylor Brunn

Thomas Saroshan David

Xiaohui Wang

Adrianus Josephus Bink

Timothy E Litch

Rejoy Roy Mathews

John M Khoury

Michael Johnson

Scott Willingham

Jinwen Xiao

Phillip Matthews

Brent Wilson

Chester Yu

William Durbin

Mudit Srivastava

Mark Wallace Johnson

Paul Zucker

Imranul Islam

Kenneth Alan Berringer

Oeivind A G Loe

Hegong Wei

Pedro Pachuca

Karma S Bhutia

Marius Grannæs

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a fabric circuit to couple between a plurality of managers and a memory; and multi-bank memory control circuitry coupled to the fabric circuit and to couple to a plurality of banks of the memory and including a plurality of first ports to receive memory requests from the plurality of managers, The multi-bank memory control circuitry is to enable each of the plurality of managers to access the memory in parallel. A global monitor is coupled to the multi-bank memory control circuitry and includes a plurality of second ports and a plurality of state machines, each of the plurality of state machines to be associated with one of the plurality of managers. Each of the plurality of state machines is configured to enforce exclusivity of a memory region on behalf of a manager and concurrently enable non-exclusive access to the memory region.

Global monitor for multi-port memory controller

A multi-bus protocol memory controller is disclosed. The memory controller utilizes shim circuits to translate between the various bus protocols used in the System on a Chip (SoC) and the bus protocol used by the memory controller. The use of shim circuits reduces the number of bridges required in the SoC and also increases performance. The memory controller is designed such that it may interface with any bus protocol, requiring only the design and inclusion of a shim circuit for that bus protocol.

Multi-port, multi-protocol varied size RAM controller

In one example, an apparatus includes: a radio frequency (RF) receiver to receive an RF signal; a media access control (MAC) circuit to receive data and output MAC-processed data according to a clock signal that is phase delayed with respect to a source clock signal when the RF receiver is active; and an interference mitigation circuit to receive the MAC-processed data and provide the MAC-processed data to a physical circuit resynchronized to the source clock signal.

System, apparatus and method for mitigating digital interference within radio frequency circuitry

A circuit for compensating for data delay is disclosed. The circuit utilizes an internal clock signal. This internal clock signal passes through an I/O buffer to become an external clock. This external clock is then passed through the I/O buffer to create the return clock signal. This difference between the internal clock signal and the return clock signal is defined as I/O delay. In certain embodiments, this I/O delay may be more than one clock period, which typically causes incorrect operation of synchronous logic. The present circuit allows for a I/O delay of N clock periods, wherein N is greater than one, through a novel approach to capturing and synchronizing the return data. This allows high speed microcontrollers to utilize lower speed I/O buffers to reduce interference, or allows these microcontrollers to interface with slower external devices.

Data delay compensator circuit

An integrated circuit includes a clock management unit that selectively provides a clock signal, an energy management circuit that provides an internal power supply voltage to an internal voltage rail in response to an external power supply voltage, and has a capacitor coupled between the internal voltage rail and a reference voltage terminal, and a clocked digital circuit that is coupled to the internal voltage rail and the reference voltage terminal and operates in synchronism with the clock signal. The clock management unit provides the clock signal at a first frequency during a standby state, continuously at a second frequency higher than the first frequency during an active state, and during a first clock cycle following an end of the standby state while suppressing the clock signal during at least one subsequent clock cycle during a transition state between the standby state and the active state.

Integrated circuit clock management during low power operations

In one embodiment, an apparatus includes: a digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuit having a digital portion to receive a digital value and an analog portion to generate an analog voltage based on the digital value; and a refresh circuit coupled to the DAC circuit to clock gate provision of a first clock signal to the DAC circuit when the digital portion is inactive.

Performing low power refresh of a digital-to-analog converter circuit

Systems and methods are disclosed for spur mitigation for pulse signal drivers in radio frequency (RF) devices. An RF integrated circuit includes RF circuitry and analog-to-digital (ADC) circuitry. The RF circuitry operates using a local oscillator (LO) clock to receive and/or transmit RF signals, and the ADC circuitry samples one or more analog input signals and has internal timing based upon a raw digital clock. A retime circuit receives the raw digital clock and the LO clock and has a retimed clock as an output. The retimed clock represents the raw digital clock retimed with the LO clock. While other digital circuitry is timed using the raw digital clock, one or more drivers are timed by the retimed clock and provide pulse output signals to output pads. Having the drivers timed with the retimed clock and other digital circuitry timed with the raw digital clock improves overall performance.

Spur mitigation for pulse output drivers in radio frequency (RF) devices

An apparatus includes a processor and a loop cache coupled to the processor. The loop cache provides to the processor instructions corresponding to a loop in the instructions. The loop cache includes a persistence counter.

Apparatus for information processing with loop cache and associated methods

An apparatus includes a memory, and a control circuit. The memory stores a vector that identifies a signal that is to be provided by an input/output (I/O) interface to a peripheral and indicates a time value. The control circuit is adapted to process the vector and route the identified signal to the peripheral and regulate a time that the signal is routed to the peripheral based on the time value.

Apparatus and method for vector-based signal routing

A technique includes receiving a request from a processor to retrieve a first instruction from a memory for a staged execution pipeline. The technique includes selectively retrieving the first instruction from the memory in response to the request based on a determination of whether the processor will execute the first instruction.

System and technique for retrieving an instruction from memory based on a determination of whether a processor will execute the instruction

A method includes processing descriptors to control a direct memory access (DMA) channel. The method includes synchronizing at least part of the processing, which includes processing a first descriptor of the descriptors to cause the execution to selectively pause based on a trigger value.

Direct memory access descriptor-based synchronization

An apparatus includes an integrated circuit that includes a processing core and a direct memory access (DMA) engine. The DMA engine is adapted to process descriptors to control DMA communications. The descriptors contain data indicating communication endpoints that are associated with the DMA communications. The DMA engine is adapted to use other data contained in at least one of the descriptors to control branching of descriptor execution among multiple execution paths.

System and method for regulating direct memory access descriptor among multiple execution paths by using a link to define order of executions

A motor control apparatus to control a motor external to the motor control apparatus includes a microcontroller unit (MCU). The MCU includes mixed signal motor control circuitry adapted to perform back electromotive force (EMF) motor control in a first mode of operation. The mixed signal motor control circuitry is further adapted to perform field oriented control (FOC) in a second mode of operation.

Apparatus for motor control system and associated methods

A method includes generating one of a first clock signal and a second clock signal from the other clock signal. The first clock signal is configured to be used to synchronize an operation of an analog system, and the second clock signal is configured to be used to synchronize an operation of a digital system. The method includes using a phase detector of the analog system to measure a timing of the first clock signal relative to the second clock signal; and the method includes controlling a delay element of the digital system to regulate the timing based on the measurement by the phase detector to suppress noise in the analog system.

Clock signal timing-based noise suppression

An apparatus includes an input/output (I/O) interface circuit that includes a memory and a controller. The memory stores a plurality of commands to regulate an input/output (I/O) interface. The commands indicate at least one I/O state of at least one I/O terminal of the I/O interface circuit and a time duration that is associated with the I/O state. The controller executes the commands to place the I/O interface in the the I/O state(s) in a predetermined sequence.

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Austin, TX, United States of America

Paul Zavalney