The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Oct. 27, 1998
Filed:
Mar. 12, 1997
Hieu Van Tran, San Jose, CA (US);
Nataraj S Bindiganavale, Cupertino, CA (US);
Anthony Dunne, Cupertino, CA (US);
Boyce W Jarrett, Austin, TX (US);
Information Storage Devices, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
An apparatus and method for message management using nonvolatile analog signal recording and playback is disclosed. The device is an integrated circuit with interface circuitry for use as a peripheral device to a microcontroller or a microprocessor-based system. The integrated circuit is complete with differential analog inputs, auto attenuation to improve signal quality, filter, fixed references including a band gap reference, trimming, memory array, multiple closed loop sample and hold circuits, column device, row decoder, address counters, master oscillator, chip function timing circuits, and a serial peripheral interface (SPI) and circuits on a single chip. The integrated circuit is interfaced with a host microcontroller through the SPI. The host microcontroller can send a number of commands to the integrated circuit through the SPI for efficient message management. These commands include the basic commands to record or playback and various addressing and message cueing options. The system utilizes redundancy to increase production yield. It also utilizes a high speed test mode to reduce production testing time.