Gm Global Technolgoy Operations, Inc.

Samuel Lorincz

Gregory E Sutterlin

Charles E Vink

Shih-Chia Chang

Han-Sheng Lee

Chi Hung Leung

David B Hicks

Iulian Nedelescu

Qian Shi

Structures and fabrication methods of micromachined all-metal relays on silicon chips are described. The relay comprises a copper blade, electroformed into the lithographically patterned areas, with suitable dimensions of 1 mm.times.2 mm.times.0.01 mm (width.times.length.times.thickness) and a plurality of longitudinal slots to facilitate fabrication of the blade. The relay is actuated by electrostatic force, and no conduction current is required to hold the relay at either 'on' or 'off' state. Preferably, the relay is used in combination with a suitable arc suppression circuit.

Integrated electrostatically-actuated micromachined all-metal

A lamp monitor provides a sense resistor for each lamp circuit as a special sense terminal member with a series resistance and sense terminals connected to a circuit board in a lamp monitor module. A multiplexing arrangement allows selection of the circuit to be monitored. The monitor samples the voltage across the series resistance by first connecting a capacitor across the sense terminals to be charged to the voltage and then disconnecting the capacitor from the sense terminals and connecting it across the input of an amplifier. The voltage across the lamps is sensed to provide a ratiometric reference for the digitizing of the amplifier output in an analog to digital converter; and a digital computer corrects the input digital signal with a stored non-linear normalization factor relating current to voltage in the lamps. The normalized value is compared with a predetermined percentage of a learned reference to determine lamp outage; and the learned reference is updated at a slowed rate when no lamp outage is detected.

Adaptive lamp monitor using capacitors and switches

Adaptive lamp monitor with non-linear normalization factor

Adaptive lamp monitor with single piece sensor

Adaptive lamp monitor with first and second comparison rates

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Boardman, OH, United States of America

Samuel Lorincz