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:
Jul. 25, 2000
Filed:
Apr. 30, 1999
Mau Chung Chang, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
Henry O Marcy, 5th, Camarillo, CA (US);
Kenneth D Pedrotti, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
David R Pehlke, Chapel Hill, NC (US);
Charles W Seabury, Calabasas, CA (US);
Jun J Yao, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
James L Bartlett, Cedar Rapids, IA (US);
J L Tham, San Jose, CA (US);
Deepak Mehrotra, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
Rockwell Science Center, LLC, Thousand Oaks, CA (US);
Abstract
A frequency stabilizer circuit in the form of a charge-pump phase-lock loop utilizing a MEMS capacitance device, preferably a tunable MEMS capacitor or a MEMS capacitor bank, which more rapid and with a greater precision determine the phase and frequency of a carrier signal so that it can be extracted, providing an information signal of interest. Such MEMS devices have the added advantage of providing linear capacitance, low insertion losses, higher isolation and high reliability, they run on low power and permit the entire circuit to be fabricated on a common substrate. The use of the MEMS capacitance device reduces unwanted harmonics generated by the circuit's charge pump allowing the filtering requirements to be relaxed or perhaps eliminated.