Western Digital Corporation

Palomar Technologies, Inc.

Hughes Identification Devices, Inc.

William E Armstrong

Peter R Lowe

A tire transponder system seats a transponder coil in a flexible resilient tube that is positioned around a vehicle wheel. The transponder antenna is lodged in a groove that extends around the tube, and responds to an excitation signal by transmitting a signal that contains identification information and/or information on the tire condition. For tire condition information, a diode is connected in circuit with the transponder coil to double the frequency of the signal returned by the transponder. A switch that is connected to bypass the diode is operated by a tire condition sensor, such as a pressure sensor, when the sensed condition crosses a threshold level in a predetermined direction. The change in the frequency of the transponder's returned signal when the threshold has been crossed is used to activate a response such as a low tire pressure alarm.

Transponder system for communicating with a vehicle tire

An improved identification system that employs a novel radio frequency (RF) transponder. The RF transponder comprises a plurality of integrated circuit transponder chips, an RF transmit antenna coupled to an RF output of each of the transponder chips, and a sensor coupled to each of the plurality of transponder chips. A sensor switch is coupled between each of the transponder chips and the RF transmit antenna. The plurality of transponder chips may be individually programmed with different information, or identical information except for one bit. A code reader is coupled to an RF receive antenna for processing data transmitted by the transponder. The transponder is used to transfer information to the code reader relating to an item to which the sensor or transponder is coupled and the condition of the sensor switch. Transmission is accomplished by way of an RF communications link using the RF transmit and receive antennas. The transponder and identification system may thus be used with any application requiring sensor switch information and/or multiple sets of data.

RF/ID transponder system employing multiple transponders and a sensor

A diffusion self-aligned, short channel device may be fabricated by ion implantation of an n-type channel region within a p-type substrate. A p-type dopant is then implanted in and driven through a portion of the n-type channel region to form an impurity region. A diffusion self-aligned n-type channel region is then disposed in the p-type impurity region and in the n-type channel region. The method allows for the simultaneous fabrication of a channel implanted MOSFET as well as a standard MOSFET. The resulting diffusion self-aligned, short channel device is a high gain, high speed small device which can be simply combined and fabricated with channel-implanted depletion devices and low body effect devices in an integrated circuit.

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Mission Viejo, CA, United States of America

William E Armstrong