Switch techniques for load sensing

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9014381-B2
Application number	US-201213723170-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 20, 2012
Priority date	Dec 20, 2012
Publication date	Apr 21, 2015
Grant date	Apr 21, 2015

Abstract

Techniques for sensing the resistance of a load. In an aspect, a sense resistor is provided in series with the load. Each terminal of the sense resistor is alternately coupled via switches to a sense amplifier. A second input of the sense resistor is coupled to a terminal of the load. The voltage drop across the load and the voltage drop across the load plus sense resistor are alternatively measured. These voltage drops may be digitized and used to compute a resistance of the load using, e.g., a digital processor.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
a sense resistor having a first terminal and a second terminal;
a first switch coupled to the first terminal;
a second switch coupled to the second terminal;
wherein the first and second switches are configured to alternately couple one of the first and second terminals to a sense amplifier.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising:
a load having a first terminal and a second terminal, the…

Assignees

• Qualcomm Inc

Inventors

• Quan Xiaohong
• Shah Peter J
• Srivastava Ankit
• Miao Guoqing

Classifications

• H04R29/001 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04R3/007 Primary

  Electricity · mapped topic