International Business Machines Corporation

Schroth Safety Products Gmbh

Takata Protection Systems, Inc.

Ray Garcia

Stephen Eugene Still

Kendall A Honeycutt

Craig W White

Ahad M Zadeh

Stefan Meier-Arndt

Mario Schnetger

James J Tout, Jr

Will Eugene Hamel

Warren F Huber

A method for diagnosing aircraft airbag initiators in air bag systems includes: providing a diagnostic circuit per aircraft seat, the diagnostic circuit being in a normally off condition and enabled by a user activation; providing a power supply independent of aircraft power; providing a momentary switch; providing a visual indicator; receiving a signal indicating user activation of the momentary switch; and responsive to receiving the signal: completing a circuit, regulating a current into the diagnostic circuit to prevent a squib from firing during diagnostic evaluation; detecting a voltage; and providing feedback to the user.

Apparatus, system, and method for diagnosing initiators in airbag systems

The present invention discloses embodiments of an apparatus, system and related method for diagnosing initiators in air bag systems. An embodiment of the system comprises a diagnostic circuit electrically connected between acceleration switches and one or more squib, that is user-activated via a momentary switch, and with user-feedback, wherein a user can diagnose the health of the one or more squib with no power drain while inactive. An embodiment of a method related to the system comprises activating a momentary switch, completing a circuit whereby a diagnostic circuit may function, indicating to the user that the diagnostic circuit is functioning, regulating the current into the diagnostic circuit so that the squib does not fire, boosting the signal to a window comparator, detecting the desired voltage by the window comparator, giving feedback to the user that the voltage is good, too high, or too low. An apparatus embodiment of the present invention may comprise an electronics control module for sensing a crash event and initiating an inflation sequence for one or more airbags with an integrated system for diagnosing one or more initiators. The apparatus may include a housing enclosing one or more circuit boards, to which may be electrically connected one or more wire harnesses which themselves are electrically connected to one or more squibs.

Apparatus for providing electrical power to a processor (CPU) within a computing system includes a fixed-voltage power supply and a programmable power supply. When the computing system is turned on, a switching circuit determines whether the processor is a unified voltage plane type, having a first particular pin electrically floating, or a split voltage plane type, having this pin grounded. In either case, the output of the programmable power supply is applied to the pins associated with the core voltage plane of a split voltage plane type. If the processor is a unified voltage plane type, the switching circuit applies the output of the programmable power supply to the pins associated with the I/O voltage plane of a split voltage plane type. If it is of a split voltage plane type, the switching circuit applies the output of the fixed-voltage power supply to an I/O voltage plane of the processor, with the programmable power supply being first set to generate a voltage determined by whether a second grounded pin is present in the processor. Then, an instruction in an initialization program causes the processor having a split voltage plane to transmit an identification code, which is used to determine a final level of the programmable power supply voltage.

Automatic voltage regulation for processors having different voltage requirements and unified or split voltage planes

Apparatus for monitoring fan speeds within a computing system includes a tachometer turning with the fan, providing a tachometer signal including a number of pulses during each revolution of the fan. This tachometer signal is provided as an input to a signal generator in the form of a flip-flop, which generates a square-wave signal having transitions between high and low levels corresponding to tachometer signal pulses. The square-wave signals are provided as inputs to separate input ports of a microprocessor. These input ports are sequentially sampled at a rate providing at least two samples per period of the fastest square-wave signal, so that transitions of each square wave signal during a predetermined time interval can be detected and counted. For each input port, the number of counted transitions is compared to a stored acceptable value to establish whether the fan is operating in an acceptable speed range.

Apparatus and method for monitoring fan speeds within a computing system

A computer system includes a system bus, peripheral devices, bus control logic having bus control lines for bus master operation, and an allocation control circuit. The allocation control circuit is connected to at least one of the bus control lines and at least two of the peripheral devices. The connected bus control line is coupled to one of the connected peripheral devices by the allocation unit so that the one connected peripheral device can operate as a bus master on the system bus. In a preferred embodiment, the allocation control circuit includes switches that are controlled by the system software. Also provided is a method of allocating bus master control lines to peripheral devices. According to the method, the bus master control lines and the peripheral devices are connected to an allocation unit. It is determined which peripheral devices to connect to which bus master control lines, and the allocation unit is directed to couple each bus master control line to one of the peripheral devices so that the selected peripheral devices can operate as bus masters. In a preferred method, the determination is based on user preferences and/or system-detected peripheral devices, and the system software controls the allocation unit.

Dynamic allocation of bus master control lines to peripheral devices

A method for monitoring the operating temperature of a semiconductor device. The method comprising the steps of: placing a thermal coupling material between the bottom of the semiconductor device and the top of a printed circuit board for inserting the device thereinto; inserting a sensor so to be at least partially covered by the thermal coupling material; and measuring the temperature from the sensor within a predetermined time interval. In accordance with another aspect of the invention, an apparatus is described to carry out the above process.

Thermal monitoring system for semiconductor devices

A method and apparatus to automatically select operating voltages for a device. The method comprising the steps of: connecting a variable resistive network in series to a first side of a resistor for varying the current through the resistor; charging an inductor with a modulate pulse train, the inductor being connected to the second side of the resistor; outputting a voltage equal to the voltage across the resistor and a fixed reference voltage located at the first side of the resistor; determining if at least one designated processor pin is connected to ground; and varying the resistance of the resistive network if at least one pin is connected to ground so as to change the current flowing through the resistor, thereby changing the voltage across it.

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Boca Raton, FL, United States of America

Ray Garcia