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:
Sep. 28, 2004
Filed:
Dec. 30, 2002
Douglas A. Sprock, San Jose, CA (US);
Robert A. Carney, Belmont, CA (US);
Timothy L. Robertson, Vallejo, CA (US);
Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A tunable optical unit includes a resistive temperature device (RTD), a thermal tuning device and a measurement circuit. The RTD has a resistance dependent on a temperature of the thermal tuning device. The measurement circuit outputs a signal that is dependent on the resistance of the RTD. The signal is used to control the temperature of the thermal tuning device in tuning the tunable optical unit. A reference resistance can be connected in series with the RTD to make ratio-metric measurements to determine the RTD's resistance (and hence the temperature of the tuning elements) without having to know the value of the current conducted through the RTD and to reduce sensitivity to fluctuations in the excitation signal.