High speed FlexLED digital interface
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorsRuochen Zhang, Wei Xu, Hongyan Wu, Qingjie Ma
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system for a network of one or more off-board subsystems is provided for controlling automobile subsystems such as vehicle lighting. Such a system may be compatible with a universal asynchronous receiver transmitter (UART) interface and it may address timing issues by using a protocol having a synchronization frame (sync frame) such that a clock signal may be recovered from the sync frame sent by an off-board master device 202, such as a microcontroller unit 208, to a satellite/slave 211 device. Such a protocol permits elimination of a crystal clock oscillator and phase-locked loop located at satellite, thereby dispensing with an otherwise significant cost.
Claims12
A controlled device, operable by a controlling device, remotely located from the controlled device, the controlled device comprising:
- a transceiver operable to transmit to and receive digital frame information, including synchronization information having a sync frame, from the controlling device;
- circuitry for providing a recovered clock signal from the synchronization information using the sync frame, the circuitry having a non-crystal oscillator;
- and
- a driver, connected to the transceiver, operable to control one or more light emitting diodes according to the recovered clock signal.
A controlled device operable by a controlling device, remotely located from the controlled device, comprising:
- a microcontroller;
- a transceiver connected to the microcontroller, the transceiver being operable to transmit to and receive from the controlling device, digital frame information having synchronization information including a sync frame;
- circuitry for recovering a clock signal from the synchronization information using the sync frame, the circuitry having a non-crystal oscillator;
- and
- a driver, coupled to the transceiver, operable to control one or more light emitting diodes according to the recovered clock signal.
A controlled device operable by a controlling device and remotely coupled to the controlled device by a bus, the controlled device comprising:
- a detector operable to receive clocked data, having a clocked frequency and including a sync frame that is predetermined bits long, from the controlling device;
- a counter coupled to the detector, the counter operable to count a number of bits in a portion of the clocked data;
- a non-crystal oscillator having an output coupled to the detector, the non-crystal oscillator outputs an oscillating signal having a frequency and a phase;
- phase shift circuitry coupled to the output of the non-crystal oscillator, the phase shift circuitry for incrementing the phase of the oscillating signal until the count by the counter matches the predetermined bit length resulting in a phase-incremented oscillating signal;
- and
- wherein the phase-incremented oscillating signal clocks the controlled device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.