Texas Instruments Corporation

Texax Instruments Incorporated

Satwinder S Malhi

Oh-Kyong Kwon

Taylor R Efland

Michael C Smayling

Wai Tung Ng

Shivaling S Mahant-Shetti

William F Richardson

Kenneth E Bean

Masashi Hashimoto

Gordon P Pollack

Ross Eliot Teggatz

David Barry Scott

Pallab K Chatterjee

Ravishankar Sundaresan

Joseph A Devore

Chi-Cheong Shen

Roy Clifton Jones, Iii

Alec James Morton

Wai T Ng

Oh K Kwon

Thomas J Aton

Sanjay K Banerjee

Hisashi Shichijo

Stephen A Keller

David A Baglee

Rajiv R Shah

Chia-Cu P Mei

Richard H Womack

Thirumalai Sridhar

Eng C Born

Masahi Hashimoto

Craig A Fischer

Bruce D Quinney

Charles C Driscoll

Donald M Bordelon

Shivaling S Mahant-Shitti

On-Kyong Kwon

Walter R Runyan

A portable computer having a display unit coupled to a base. The display unit includes an exterior display case, a screen, one or more liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, display electronics and a light source. The light source is a tubular shaped lamp which extends along a length of the display case and is held in place by a harness at one end of the display case. A section of the display case is an independently movable reflector, coated with a light reflective mirrored finish that distributes light evenly along the LCD panel surface. The computer has a storage mode and an active mode. When in active mode, the reflector is inclined and light from the light source reflects unto the LCD panel within the case. In storage mode, the reflector is closed and no light is reflected unto the LCD panel.

Display device for portable notebook computer

A vertical transistor comprises a semiconductor layer of a first conductivity type having a first doped region (,) formed therein. A second doped region (,) is formed within the first doped region (,). A gate overlies the first doped region such that a low impedance path between the second doped region and the semiconductor layer may be created responsive to a voltage applied to the gate. Isolation regions (,and,) are formed through the semiconductor layer to isolate the transistor from other devices.

Vertical transistor having top and bottom surface isolation

A printed circuit, printed wiring board and method of making same which includes a flexible rectangular strip (1) having an interconnect pattern thereon. A plurality of flaps (5, 5'), (7, 7'), (9, 9') of substantially equal length extends laterally from one of the sides of the rectangular strip, at least one flap having a narrow width dimension and the terminal flap having a relatively wide width dimension sufficient to overlap the other flaps. The width of the flaps having a narrow width are sufficient to contact the overlapping flap. A patterned interconnect is disposed on the rectangular strip and extends onto the flaps. A plurality of electrical components (11) is coupled to the interconnect and disposed in the region opposed to the flaps. The narrow flaps extend toward the wider flap and the wide flap extends toward the narrow flaps and extends over the narrow flaps. The interconnects are interconnected on the flaps. The board includes a plurality of layers of electrically insulating material and the patterned interconnect is disposed between the layers of electrically insulating material.

Three dimensional assembly using flexible wiring board

A notebook computer (100) or other electronic device has a keyboard (106) using keys (40, 80) which can assume an active state for typing while a spring (64, 84) is pressed against a guide mechanism (44). By disengaging the spring (64, 84) from the guide mechanism, the keys (40, 80) assume a storage state at a lower height.

Low profile keyboard

A notebook computer (10) including a keyboard (14) having gas or piston expandable keys (18) which may be placed in an expanded or compressed state. While in an expanded state, the keys (18) are approximately the size of the keys on a standard keyboard. While in a compressed state, the keys are essentially flat, allowing the keyboard to be folded upon itself. Accordingly, the keyboard (18) may be folded in a compressed state when the computer is not in use to reduce keyboard area, and unfolded and expanded to provide a full size keyboard when the computer is in use.

Computer having a collapsible keyboard structure

A method for producing a thin panel liquid crystal display system (20) for producing images comprising providing a mother glass (32) having at least two active glass substrates (34) therein, adhering the mother glass (32) to a handle substrate (38) to provide strength and rigidity to the mother glass (32), printing said active glass substrates (34) with grid lines, cutting the mother glass (32) between the active glass substrates (34), separating the active glass substrates (34) from one another, placing two active glass substrates (34) in parallel with one another, disbursing a plurality of glass beads on one of the active glass substrates (34), injecting liquid crystal display material between the active glass substrates (34), sealing the active glass substrates (34) together, and separating each of the active glass substrates (34) from the handle substrate (38).

Thin panel liquid crystal display system

An improved portable notebook computer having a base (15) connected to a display unit (20) that folds along a spine (26). The display unit (20) is pivotally coupled to the base (15) for motion and houses a plurality of display components including a light source (85), light guide (80) and LCD (50). The display drive circuits (115), light source (85), power board (165) and related display components are relocated to the base (15) reducing the thickness and weight of the display unit (20). PWB's (115, 120, 125) used to control LCD (50) display functions are maintained on the display case back (70) to take advantage of available space within the display unit (20). A flexible circuit (330) extends from the base (15) to the display unit (20) to connect the display drive circuits (115) to the PCB's (115, 120, 125) for controlling LCD (50) display functions.

Portable computing device having light source in base

An FED display (10) is provided which is formed from flexible materials. The flexible FED display (10) includes an anode element (12) having a face sheet layer (18) formed from a first layer of flexible insulating substrate material. A cathode element (14) is attached to the anode element (12). The cathode element (14) includes a backing sheet layer (26) formed from a second layer of flexible insulating substrate material (40).

Flexible fed display

The device has a semiconductor chip having active circuitry in the face thereof. The circuitry has busing over it containing two conductive layers having a plurality of contacts and vias with spacings between them that alternate with respect to one another to provide current ballasting and improved switching uniformity. The spacings between the alternating contacts and vias provide regions of maximum conductor thickness and therefore reduces the busing resistance. Staggering the rows of alternating contacts and vias provides further current ballasting. A first conducting layer is used to contact and provide electrically isolated low resistive conducting paths to the various semiconductor regions while the second conducting region is used to provide selective contact to the first conductive layer, thus providing a means of busing large currents over active semiconductor area without sacrificing performance parameters.

Method for current ballasting and busing over active device area using a

A fuel cell stack (60) comprises a plurality of manifolds (50) separated by membranes (37). Each manifold (50) forms overlapping chambers (34, 36) for adjacent cells (32) such that the depth of chambers for adjacent cells is not additive. In the preferred embodiment, the manifolds (50) are formed of a plastic material with conductive vias formed therethrough to reduce the cost associated with graphite vias.

Low profile fuel cell

A power semiconductor device is shown to comprise a source region (24) and a drain region (26) disposed in a semiconductor substrate (10). A channel region (30) is disposed inwardly from a gate oxide layer (18) and a gate conductor (20). The device comprises a composite drift region (38) is formed of an n-type region (12) and a gallium arsenide region (36).

Semiconductor device with composite drift region

An improved high-voltage device structure (10, 50, or 60) is a hybrid silicon-based/non-silicon-based power device that has a low R.sub.ds(on) relative to devices formed using only a silicon substrate and includes control circuit (14, 14', or 14') formed on silicon substrate region (12 or 62). High-voltage circuit (16, 16' or 16') is formed in non-silicon substrate region (18). Connecting circuitry (34 and 66) connects control circuit (14, 14', and 14') with high-voltage circuit (16, 16' or 16') to form high-voltage device structure (10, 50 or 60) that has improved control circuit performance and improved high-voltage circuits performance over devices formed solely from a silicon substrate or solely from a non-silicon substrate.

High-performance high-voltage device structures

A method and apparatus is provided for miniaturizing battery overtemperature protection and voltage regulation circuits in which such protection and regulation circuits are formed in an integrated circuit (200, 600) and embedded in the casings of individual batteries. In one aspect of the invention, a MOSFET switch (Q1), a temperature sensitive diode (D1) and a control circuit (604) may be formed in an integrated circuit (600) and embedded in the casing of a battery. The MOSFET switch may be placed in the charging path of the battery to provide an open circuit when the battery temperature exceeds a predetermined value. In another aspect of the invention, the operation of the MOSFET switch (Q1) may be controlled by a control circuit (204) to provide a constant output voltage from the battery, thereby improving the operation of the portable system using the battery.

Embedded battery overtemperature protection and voltage regulator

A top drain trench based RESURF DMOS (reduced surface field double diffused MOS) transistor structure provides improved RDSon performance by minimizing transistor cell pitch. The transistor includes a gate, a source and drain. The trench may include a nonuniform dielectric lining. A drain drift region partially surrounds the trench. Current flows laterally enabling multiple trench based RESURF DMOS transistors to be formed on a single semiconductor die. The addition of an isolation region to electrically isolate the source from the substrate allows the power transistor to be incorporated into high side driver applications as well as other application mandating electrical isolation between the source and ground.

Top-drain trench based resurf DMOS transistor structure

One embodiment of the present invention is a battery (17) (preferably configured in the form of a wrist band, headband, necklace, arm band or a waist band) for a personal electronic device (preferably a watch, a personal communications device, a personal television, or a personal radio), the battery located external to the personal electronic device and comprising: an outer surface (12); an anode (28); a cathode (30); and a connector (10) to electrically connect the battery to the personal electronic device. The battery of the present invention can be flexible. In addition the battery may further include a plurality of photovoltaic cells (22) disposed on the outer surface of the battery, whereby the battery and the photovoltaic cells are operable to supply power to the personal electronic device. Additionally, the plurality of photovoltaic cells would be operable to charge the battery during periods other than when the battery is supplying power to the personal electronic device.

Growing community of inventors

Garland, TX, United States of America

Satwinder S Malhi