Alternative routing of wireless data onto power supply

#Electronic devices, such as portable media players, storage devices, tablets, netbooks, laptops, desktops, all-in-one computers, wearable computing devices, cell, media, and smart phones, televisions, monitors, and other display devices, navigation systems, and other devices have become ubiquitous in recent years. Many of these devices now communicate wirelessly. In fact, many users may prefer to have devices communicate wirelessly to avoid having to make connections between devices using cables and other wires.

#Also, it may be desirable to reduce the number of connector receptacles on an electronic device. These connector receptacles consume area along an outside of a device, consume space in the device, add costs, detract from the device's appearance, and form leakage paths for water and other corrosive fluids.

#Accordingly, many devices currently rely heavily, if not exclusively, on wireless connections to other devices. Wireless communications may include the transfer of files and data that may be used by programs and applications on the device. Other wireless communications may involve relatively large files. These files may be firmware files, system updates, and other such files. These files may often be transferred to a device during manufacturing and testing of the device. For example, these files may be used to initially program the device. Since these files are large, their transfer to a device may consume a great deal of time, thereby slowing the manufacturing process and increasing costs.

#FIG. 1 illustrates communication circuitry according to an embodiment of the present invention;

#FIG. 2 illustrates a frequency spectrum of a combined signal at a power connection according to an embodiment of the present invention;

#FIG. 3 illustrates a frequency spectrum of a combined signal at a power connection according to an embodiment of the present invention;

#FIG. 1 illustrates communication circuitry according to an embodiment of the present invention. This figure, as with the other included figures, is shown for illustrative purposes and does not limit either the possible embodiments of the present invention or the claims.

#This figure includes a first signal path 180. First signal path 180 may be an integrated circuit, portion of an integrated circuit, or it may be formed of one or more integrated or other circuits. Signal path 180 may be an RF signal path for wireless communications. This RF signal path 180 may be designed for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, near field, or other wireless communications. RF signal path 180 may include baseband circuit 110 and transceiver 120. Transceiver 120 may include an IF modulator/demodulator 130 and RF modulator/demodulator 140. In other embodiments of the present invention, transceiver 120 may include only an RF modulator/demodulator 140, or it may include one or more of these and other circuits. Each modulator/demodulator may include a modulator in the transmit path and a demodulator in the receive path.

#During RF communications, DATA A may be received by baseband circuit 110. The baseband data from baseband circuit 110 may be modulated to an intermediate frequency by IF modulator/demodulator 130. This intermediate frequency signal may be modulated by RF modulator/demodulator 140 and provided as an RF signal to antenna 182. Also, RF data may be received at antenna 182, demodulated by RF modulator/demodulator 140 and provided to IF modulator/demodulator 130. The demodulated data may be provided by IF modulator/demodulator 130 to baseband circuit 110, which may convert it into the signal DATA A. The signal DATA A may be provided to other circuitry in the electronic device.