-
公开(公告)号:US20220311413A1
公开(公告)日:2022-09-29
申请号:US17211391
申请日:2021-03-24
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Ehrentraud Hager , Harald Pretl
Abstract: An integrated circuit may include a resonator formed from FinFET devices. The resonator may include drive cells of alternating polarities and sense cells interposed between the drive cells. Each of the drive cells may include at least two drive transistors having fins coupled to a drive terminal. Each sense cell may include two sense transistors having one fin coupled to a sense terminal and another fin coupled to ground. Adjacent drive and sense cells may be separated by an intervening region that can accommodate a number of fins. Configured in this way, the resonator can exhibit a high quality factor, low phase noise, and can operate at a frequency that is less than the characteristic resonant frequency as defined by the fin pitch of the drive and sense transistors.
-
12.
公开(公告)号:US20210175958A1
公开(公告)日:2021-06-10
申请号:US16761441
申请日:2018-03-29
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Harald Pretl , Werner Schelmbauer , Josef Holzleitner
IPC: H04B7/08 , H04B1/00 , H04B7/0413
Abstract: A method and apparatus for receiving and processing multiple carriers with multiple antennas. The device includes a plurality of antennas for receiving signals over a plurality of carriers, and a plurality of receive chains connected to each antenna for processing a signal received on each antenna. The signal received on each antenna is split into multiple receive chains for receive processing. The antennas are grouped into a plurality of sub-groups and a signal on a first carrier is received on a first sub-group of antennas and a signal on a second carrier is received on a second sub-group of antennas. A signal on a third carrier may be received on all antennas. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) on the first and second carriers may be implemented using the first and second sub-group of antennas, respectively, and MIMO on the third carrier may be implemented using all antennas.
-
公开(公告)号:US12283739B2
公开(公告)日:2025-04-22
申请号:US17932275
申请日:2022-09-14
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Christof Pfannenmüller , Dominic Koehler , Harald Pretl , Rastislav Vazny
Abstract: An electronic device may include isolation circuitry coupled between a transmitter, a receiver, and one or more antennas. The isolation circuitry may include a 90 degree hybrid coupler configured receive a transmission (TX) signal from the transmitter, split the TX signal into a first portion and a second portion, and phase-shift a portion such that the portions are +90 degrees out-of-phase. The isolation circuitry may include phase shifters that phase-shift the portions such that the portions are in-phase prior to propagating to the antenna. The phase shifters may receive a first portion and a second portion of a receiver (RX) signal from splitter circuitry. The phase shifters may phase-shift the portions such that the portions are out-of-phase by −90 degrees. The 90 degree hybrid coupler may phase-shift the first portion and/or the second portion such that the portions are in-phase and constructively combine prior to propagating to the receiver.
-
公开(公告)号:US12047101B2
公开(公告)日:2024-07-23
申请号:US17716724
申请日:2022-04-08
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Joonhoi Hur , Jochen Schrattenecker , Bin Xiao , Andre Hanke , Harald Pretl , Rastislav Vazny , Bernhard Sogl , Andreas Menkhoff
CPC classification number: H04B1/1027 , H04B1/123 , H04B15/005
Abstract: An electronic device may include wireless circuitry with a transmit antenna that transmits signals and a receive antenna that receives reflected signals. The wireless circuitry may detect a range between the device and an external object based on the transmitted signals and the reflected signals. When the range exceeds a first threshold, the wireless circuitry may use the transmitted signals and received signals to record background noise. When the range is less than a second threshold value, the wireless circuitry may detect the range based on the reflected signals and the recorded background noise. This may allow the range to be accurately measured within an ultra-short range domain even when the device is placed in different device cases, placed on different surfaces, etc.
-
公开(公告)号:US12040772B2
公开(公告)日:2024-07-16
申请号:US17366692
申请日:2021-07-02
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Björn Lenhart , Joonhoi Hur , Harald Pretl , Rastislav Vazny
CPC classification number: H03H7/40 , G06N20/00 , H04B1/0458 , H04B17/104 , H04B17/12
Abstract: This disclosure provides techniques for impedance matching. A radio frequency (RF) device includes a power detector to determine a transmitter leakage and a post-processing unit to determine a receiver leakage, and determines if isolation is acceptable based on the leakages. The RF device may include a device for measuring antenna impedance. Otherwise, the RF device may select multiple tuner settings (e.g., capacitor values) for test signals to be transmitted and received at a target frequency, determine multiple sets of leakage values, determine multiple reflection coefficients based on the multiple sets of leakage values, and determine an estimated antenna impedance at the target frequency based on the reflection coefficients. The RF device then determines impedance tuner settings based on the measured or estimated antenna impedance. Alternatively, the RF device determines impedance tuner settings using an inverse machine-learning model based on a determined matching impedance.
-
公开(公告)号:US20240128929A1
公开(公告)日:2024-04-18
申请号:US18391040
申请日:2023-12-20
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Harald Pretl , Ehrentraud Hager , Aly Ismail
CPC classification number: H03B5/326 , H01L29/7851 , H03B5/04 , H03B5/1253 , H03B5/323 , H01L2924/13067
Abstract: An integrated circuit may include oscillator circuitry having a resonator formed from fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) devices. The resonator may include drive cells of alternating polarities and sense cells interposed between the drive cells. The resonator may be connected in a feedback loop within the oscillator circuitry. The oscillator circuitry may include an amplifier having an input coupled to the sense cells and an output coupled to the drive cells. The oscillator circuitry may also include a separate inductor and capacitor based oscillator, where the resonator serves as a separate output filter stage for the inductor and capacitor based oscillator.
-
公开(公告)号:US20240097657A1
公开(公告)日:2024-03-21
申请号:US17946629
申请日:2022-09-16
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Josef W Koller , Bjoern Lenhart , Dominic Koehler , Rastislav Vazny , Joonhoi Hur , Harald Pretl
CPC classification number: H03J3/20 , H04B1/18 , H03J2200/06
Abstract: In electronic devices used in radio-frequency communications, impedance matching may result in desirable operating conditions. However, impedance of the antenna may change over time (e.g., due to frequency of signals being transmitted or received, due to ambient conditions, due to age of antenna or related components). Accordingly, it may be desirable to employ antenna tracking circuitry that may operate as an impedance matching network to dynamically match the antenna impedance. To dynamically match the antenna impedance, the matching network may include tunable components. To provide fast, dynamic, and effective impedance matching, antenna tracking circuitry having an architecture with analytically determinable impedance (e.g., determinable via one or more equations) may be implemented. The antenna tracking circuitry may include a variable resistor and three variable impedances. The three variable impedances may include components capable of tuning capacitor ranges of the three variable impedances, among other characteristics of the antenna tracking circuitry.
-
公开(公告)号:US20240080008A1
公开(公告)日:2024-03-07
申请号:US17939616
申请日:2022-09-07
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Christof Pfannenmüller , Dominic Koehler , Julian W Zuber , Oliver Georg Dorn , Bjoern Lenhart , Harald Pretl , Rastislav Vazny , Christian F Tanzer
CPC classification number: H03H7/487 , H04B1/1027 , H04B1/40
Abstract: Systems and methods combine a test signal with a wanted (downlink or uplink) signal at an input of a duplexer of a communication device, and receive the test signal at an output of the duplexer. The test signal may include a radio frequency signal having less power than the wanted signal to avoid interference, or a digital signal that is added to or extracted from the wanted signal when the wanted signal does not have a radio frequency. A processor of the communication device causes the duplexer to operate in a tuning state (e.g., to transmit signals having a transmission frequency and receive signals having a receive frequency). The measurement system determines a difference or ratio in power between the test signal at the duplexer output and the duplexer input, and adjusts the tuning state based on the difference or ratio (e.g., to decrease or minimize the difference or ratio).
-
公开(公告)号:US11828871B2
公开(公告)日:2023-11-28
申请号:US17150974
申请日:2021-01-15
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Jochen Schrattenecker , Bernhard Sogl , Andreas Menkhoff , Joonhoi Hur , Harald Pretl , Christian Mayer , Andreas Langer , Rastislav Vazny
IPC: G01S7/40
CPC classification number: G01S7/4056 , G01S7/40 , G01S7/4073
Abstract: An electronic device may include radar circuitry. Control circuitry may calibrate the radar circuitry using a multi-tone calibration signal. A first mixer may upconvert the calibration signal for transmission by a transmit antenna. A de-chirp mixer may mix the calibration signal output by the first mixer with the calibration signal as received by a receive antenna or loopback path to produce a baseband multi-tone calibration signal. The baseband signal will be offset from DC by the frequency gap. This may prevent DC noise or other system effects from interfering with the calibration signal. The control circuitry may sweep the first mixer over the radio frequencies of operation of the radar circuitry to estimate the power droop and phase shift of the radar circuitry based on baseband calibration signal. Distortion circuitry may distort transmit signals used in spatial ranging operations to invert the estimated power droop and phase shift.
-
公开(公告)号:US20220291338A1
公开(公告)日:2022-09-15
申请号:US17200311
申请日:2021-03-12
Applicant: Apple Inc.
Inventor: Joonhoi Hur , Bernhard Sogl , Jochen Schrattenecker , Andreas Menkhoff , Bin Xiao , Lucas Calderin , Andre Hanke , Harald Pretl , Rastislav Vazny
Abstract: An electronic device may include a processor and wireless circuitry with transmit and receive antennas. Radar circuitry may use the transmit and receive antennas to perform spatial ranging on external objects farther than a threshold distance (e.g., 1-2 cm) from the transmit antenna. The wireless circuitry may include a voltage standing wave ration (VSWR) sensor coupled to the transmit antenna to detect the presence of objects within the threshold distance from the transmit antenna. This may serve to cover a blind spot for the radar circuitry near to the transmit antenna. The VSWR sensor may gather background VSWR measurements when other wireless performance metric data for the wireless circuitry is within a predetermined range of satisfactory values. The background VSWR measurements may be subtracted from real time VSWR measurements to perform accurate and robust ultra-short range object detection near to the transmit antenna.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-