Plume Design, Inc.

Qualcomm Incorporated

Richard Chang

William John McFarland

Yoseph Malkin

Patrick Hanley

Liem Hieu Dinh Vo

Jeffrey ChiFai Liew

Duc Minh Nguyen

Nora Yan

Paul J Husted

Miroslav Samardzija

Brian Nam

Ming-Tsung Su

Shu-Chun Shen

Irene Yang

Mohammad Bagher Vahid Far

Abbas Komijani

Kai Shi

Alireza Khalili

Yashar Rajavi

Amirpouya Kavousian

Praveen Dua

Philip F Kearney

Brian James Kaczynski

Sang-Min Lee

Tomas O'Sullivan

Cristian Marcu

Enis Akay

Yu-Chang Hu

Joe I Jamp

Hiroshi Mendoza

Meng-Ta Hsu

Tuofu Lu

Guan-Heng Chen

Jeffrey Chaifai Liew

Wireless electronic device

The present disclosure relates to thermal management of wireless access points including local thermal management, cloud-based thermal management, and thermal management based on optimization and operation such as in a distributed Wi-Fi network. The objective of the present disclosure is for thermal management in access points allowing small form-factors and aesthetic designs, preventing overheating and without requiring reduced performance or reduced hardware. Generally, the systems and methods detect when access points are nearing overheating and alter their operation so as to minimize the reduction of performance in the network while reducing power consumption.

Thermal management of wireless access points

A wireless access point includes a physical form factor including a plurality of sides each adjacent to a bottom portion, wherein the physical form factor houses a plurality of components including i) at least one Printed Circuit Board (PCB) having one or more Wi-Fi radios and a Bluetooth radio and ii) a power supply; and an electrical plug connected to the power supply and extending from the bottom portion for insertion into an electrical outlet for power and for physical support of the wireless access point adjacent to the electrical plug.

Compact, direct plugged, and high-performance Wi-Fi access point

A compact electronic device includes a base with a plurality of sides each adjacent to a bottom portion, wherein the base houses components comprising a heatsink supporting a fan module located in an interior portion, a Printed Circuit Board (PCB), and a power supply, and wherein vents are disposed on the bottom portion and side vents are disposed on one or more of the plurality of sides; a top cover configured to attach to the base via the plurality of sides forming an air gap extending each of the plurality of sides, wherein the air gap supports air exhaust on one or more sides of the plurality of sides and air intake on the remaining sides; and an electrical plug connected to the power supply and extending out of the bottom portion for insertion into an electrical outlet for power and to physically support the compact electronic device.

Cooling of a compact electronic device

An antenna system reusing metallic components in a device includes a first antenna element which is also configured to transfer heat into surrounding air; a ground plane which is part of reused metallic components in the device for heat dissipation; and a first physical connection between the first antenna element and the ground plane which supports thermal conductivity based on an associated size and material of the first physical connection.

Antenna structure incorporated in heat spreader, heat sink, and cooling fins

Systems and methods of cloud-based thermal control of an access point performed by a cloud-based controller include periodically obtaining temperature measurements from the access point comprising one or more radio chips operating therein; responsive to the temperature exceeding a first threshold, causing one or more thermal mitigation techniques to modify operating conditions of the one or more radio chips; and, responsive to the temperature being lower than a second threshold, causing reversion back of the one or more thermal mitigation techniques.

Cloud-based thermal control of wireless access points

Systems and methods of local thermal control of an access point include determining temperature associated with the access point including one or more radio chips operating therein; responsive to the temperature exceeding a first threshold, performing one or more thermal mitigation techniques to modify operating conditions of the one or more radio chips; and, responsive to the temperature being lower than a second threshold, reverting back the one or more thermal mitigation techniques.

Local thermal control of wireless access points

An electronic device includes a first circuit board and a second circuit board each stacked relative to one another; and a mid-spreader disposed between the first circuit board and the second circuit board, wherein the mid-spreader includes a heat conductive material in thermal contact with one or more components on each of the first circuit board and the second circuit board to act as a heat sink, and wherein the mid-spreader is thermally connected to one or more heat sinks, the mid-spreader is one of disposed to or integrally formed with the one or more heat sinks, and the mid-spreader extends beyond a size of at least one of the first circuit board and the second circuit board to conduct and transfer heat therefrom.

Mid-spreader for stacked circuit boards in an electronic device

Systems and methods of optimizing a distributed Wi-Fi network considering thermal management of a plurality of access points in the distributed Wi-Fi network include periodically obtaining temperature measurements from the plurality of access points; performing an optimization to configure the distributed Wi-Fi network with the temperature measurements as thermal inputs used in the optimization, wherein the optimization determines configuration parameters including one or more of a topology of the distributed Wi-Fi network, band and channel of each hop in the topology, and which clients associate with which access point on which band, based in part on the temperature measurements and thermal constraints; and providing the configuration parameters to the distributed Wi-Fi network for implementation thereof.

Thermal management of wireless accessed points based on optimization and operation in a distributed Wi-Fi network

A method and apparatus are disclosed for mitigating a frequency spur included with a transmitter output signal from a wireless device. For at least some embodiments, the wireless device may include an auxiliary synthesizer to generate a spur cancellation signal to be summed with the transmitter output signal to cancel or reduce the frequency spur. The auxiliary synthesizer may also generate an auxiliary clock signal to demodulate a received communication signal. In some embodiments, the transmitter output signal may be looped back to a receiver of the wireless device to determine whether the frequency spur is reduced below a threshold. Data from the receiver may be used to modify the spur cancellation signal.

Spur cancellation using auxiliary synthesizer

A frequency synthesizer for a WLAN transceiver is disclosed that may be used to generate 5.4 GHz and 2.4 GHz signals. The frequency synthesizer may be configured to minimize VCO pulling by using VCO operating frequencies that are not integer multiples of the RF bands. Further, the frequency synthesizer may be configured to minimize interference with other frequency bands used by existing wireless systems.

Systems and methods for frequency synthesis to improve coexistence

A first network device can implement functionality to establish a proximity-based wireless connection with a second network device. It can be determined whether the second network device is within a threshold detection distance from the first network device based on a signal strength associated with RF signals received from the second network device or based on detecting RF saturation at the first network device. Device credentials associated with the first network device can be transmitted to the second network device at a reduced transmit power level in response to determining that the second network device is within the threshold detection distance from the first network device. A communication link can be established between the first network device and the second network device based, at least in part, on the device credentials associated with the first network device and device credentials received from the second network device.

Proximity-based wireless handshaking for connection establishment

Methods of calibrating and operating a switching power supply in an electronic system are disclosed. A switching power supply is calibrated to determine a switching frequency. Harmonic frequencies that are multiples of the switching frequency are determined. A further determination is made as to whether any of the harmonic frequencies falls within one of one or more frequency bands of interest. A second switching frequency is determined such that none of its corresponding harmonic frequencies falls within a frequency band of interest. During operation of the system, the switching power supply is configured to operate at the second switching frequency if operation occurs within one of the frequency bands of interest.

Switching power supply operation with reduced harmonic interference

This disclosure is directed to systems and methods that provide control of transmitted signal power that do not require the use of an external power detector. By determining the expected transmit power based upon conditions such as temperature or voltage, the settings of the transmitters amplifier can be adjusted to more closely match the desired transmit power.

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Richard Chang