Qualcomm Incorporated

Roy Benjamin Silverstein

Jose Roberto Menendez

Lukai Cai

Rajkrishnan Parameswaran

Jon James Anderson

Pei Xiang

Dongwon Seo

Unnikrishnan Vadakkanmaruveedu

Shahin Mehdizad Taleie

Dinesh Ramakrishnan

Jongwon Shin

Vinay Mitter

Sang-Uk Ryu

Ankur Jain

Andre Gustavo P Schevciw

Liviu Chiaburu

Zenghui Zhao

Shahin Medhizah Taleie

Techniques for detecting and dealing with a lost electronics device are disclosed. In one design, the device may autonomously determine whether it is lost. The device may destroy at least one component to render it inoperable and may perform other actions in response to determining that it is lost. In another design, the device may determine available battery power of the device upon determining that it is lost, select at least one action in a list of possible actions based on the available battery power, and perform the selected action(s). In yet another design, upon determining that it is lost, the device may prevent access to information on the device based on a secondary security key, which is not used for encrypting information during normal operation. In yet another design, the device may notify at least one contact and may perform at least one additional action upon determining that it is lost.

Method and apparatus for detecting and dealing with a lost electronics device

Various embodiments of methods and systems for estimating environmental ambient temperature of a portable computing device ('PCD') from electrical resistance measurements taken voice coils in a speaker or microphone component are disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment, it may be recognized that the PCD is in an idle state, thus producing little or no thermal energy. Electrical resistance measurements are taken from a voice coil and used to estimate the environmental ambient temperature to which the PCD is exposed. Certain embodiments may simply render the estimated ambient temperature for the benefit of the user or use the estimated ambient temperature as an input to a program or application running on the PCD. It is envisioned that certain embodiments of the systems and methods may use the estimated ambient temperature to adjust temperature thresholds in the PCD against which thermal management policies govern thermally aggressive processing components.

System and method for estimating ambient temperature of a portable computing device using a voice coil

To reduce the risk of brown outs and resets in a mobile station using a far-field speaker, a voltage level of a battery and a level of an input audio signal are monitored. When the level of the audio signal increases past a threshold level, and the voltage level of the battery falls below a threshold voltage, an attenuation is determined and applied to the audio signal. The applied attenuation reduces the volume of the audio signal, which reduces the risk of a brown out or a reset due to insufficient voltage in the mobile station.

Battery power monitoring and audio signal attenuation

An original loudness level of an audio signal is maintained for a mobile device while maintaining sound quality as good as possible and protecting the loudspeaker used in the mobile device. The loudness of an audio (e.g., speech) signal may be maximized while controlling the excursion of the diaphragm of the loudspeaker (in a mobile device) to stay within the allowed range. In an implementation, the peak excursion is predicted (e.g., estimated) using the input signal and an excursion transfer function. The signal may then be modified to limit the excursion and to maximize loudness.

Loudness maximization with constrained loudspeaker excursion

A buffer amplifier has a power on state and a sleep state. During regular operation a coupling state of a load to an output node is detected using feedback voltage. In a sleep mode and in a power collapse mode a detection current is injected into the output node, to produce a voltage, and the coupling state of the load is detected from the voltage. Optionally, the detection current and detecting of the voltage on the output node is enables by a low duty cycle clock. Optionally, signals generated in detecting the coupling state are qualified through a debounce circuit.

Load detecting impedance matching buffer

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San Diego, CA, United States of America

Roy Benjamin Silverstein