Discrete time loop based thermal control
AssigneeTaiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Ltd.
InventorsJui-Cheng HUANG, Yi-Hsing HSIAO, Yu-Jie HUANG, Tsung-Tsun CHEN, Allen Timothy CHANG
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Abstract
In an embodiment, a circuit includes: an error amplifier; a temperature sensor, wherein the temperature sensor is coupled to the error amplifier; a discrete time controller coupled to the error amplifier, wherein the discrete time controller comprises digital circuitry; a multiple bits quantizer coupled to the discrete time controller, wherein the multiple bits quantizer produces a digital code output; and a heating array coupled to the multiple bits quantizer, wherein the heating array is configured to generate heat based on the digital code output.
Claims20
A discrete time loop based control system, comprising:
- an error amplifier;
- a temperature sensor coupled to an input of the error amplifier;
- a discrete time controller coupled to an output of the error amplifier;
- and
- a quantizer configured to produce a digital code for control of a heater, wherein the temperature sensor produces a value that characterizes the digital code output by the quantizer, wherein the heater comprises a plurality of heating elements each comprising a respective resistor coupled to a respective switch, wherein the respective switch is controlled by a respective bit of the digital code output, and wherein the discrete time controller is configured to produce a control signal for controlling the quantizer.
A circuit, comprising:
- an error amplifier;
- a sensor, wherein the sensor is coupled to the error amplifier;
- a discrete time controller coupled to an output of the error amplifier;
- and
- a quantizer configured to produce a digital code for control of a heater, wherein the sensor produces a value that characterizes the digital code output by the quantizer, wherein the heater comprises a plurality of heating elements, wherein each of the plurality of heating elements comprises a respective resistor coupled to a respective switch, wherein the respective switch is controlled by a respective bit of the digital code output, and wherein the discrete time controller is configured to produce a control signal for controlling the quantizer.
A method, comprising:
- producing an output of a process, wherein the output is a temperature;
- determining an output measurement value based on the output using a temperature sensor;
- determining an error between the output measurement value and a reference value;
- generating a control signal based on the error;
- and
- using the control signal to control the process with a quantizer, wherein the quantizer utilizes the control signal to generate a digital code, and wherein the digital code individually controls a plurality of heating elements of a heating array, wherein each of the plurality of heating elements comprises a respective resistor coupled to a respective switch, wherein the respective switch is controlled by a respective bit of the digital code output.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.