Tire pressure detector having reduced power consumption mechanism

A tire pressure detector, comprising:

• a pressure sensor that measures pressure in a tire;
• an integrated circuit that receives tire pressure information from said pressure sensor and processes it as an RF signal for transmission, said integrated circuit comprising a phase-locked loop circuit formed on said integrated circuit said phase-locked loop circuit comprising a voltage controlled oscillator, said voltage controlled oscillator turned off when said input data stream transitions from high to low and turned on when said input data stream transitions low to high;
• a power amplifier that receives said RF signal from said integrated circuit and amplifies said RF signal, said power amplifier configured to be externally disposed to said integrated circuit;
• and
• an RF antenna connected to said power amplifier and transmitting said RF signal.

A method comprising:

• collecting data at each tire of a plurality of tires of a vehicle representative of at least one tire characteristic;
• generating an input data stream employing a data processing circuit at each respective tire, including data responsive to said data representative of said at least one tire characteristic;
• encoding said input data stream to comprise a plurality of bits such that each bit of data may contain a plurality of logic states;
• powering a voltage controlled oscillator included in a phase-locked loop circuit in response to said logic states within said data bits included in said input data stream;
• presenting a signal representative of said input data stream using said voltage controlled oscillator to a power amplifier;
• and
• transmitting said output signal from said power amplifier to a central control unit using additional circuitry contained in said tire pressure detector.