WIRELESS RECEIVER CIRCUIT AND METHOD

• US 20140157081A1
• Filed: 11/21/2013
• Published: 06/05/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 11/22/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: NXP B.V. (NXP Semiconductors NV)
• Original Assignee: NXP B.V. (NXP Semiconductors NV)
• Inventors: Hoogerbrugge, Jan
• Granted Patent: US 9,218,241 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/758
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3296 by lowering the supply or operating voltage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/10 Adding special bits or symbols to the coded information, e.g. parity check, casting out 9's or 11's
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0045 Arrangements at the receiver end
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/0053 specially adapted for power saving
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/203 Details of error rate determination, e.g. BER, FER or WER
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 1/208 involving signal re-encoding
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A circuit and a method are used estimate quality of the output of a wireless receiver. This quality measure is used to control the supply voltage and thereby provide power savings.

Claims

1. A wireless receiver circuit comprising:

a receiver unit (10) having a first voltage power supply and providing an output as a stream of digital output bits;

a parity check unit (30) at the output;

a control unit (14) for deriving a control output based on a comparison of the parity check unit output and a target parity error rate; and

a voltage regulator (16) for providing the first voltage to the wireless receiver unit, in dependence on the control unit output.

2. A circuit as claimed in claim 1, further comprising a quantizer (15) between the control unit and the voltage regulator.

3. A circuit as claim in any preceding claim, wherein the voltage regulator (16) implements a voltage overscaling function for the wireless receiver unit.

4. A circuit as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the receiver receives a parity bit with each packet of a packetized data stream.

5. A battery operated device comprising a wireless receiver circuit as claimed in any preceding claim.

6. A battery operated device as claimed in claim 5 comprising a hearing aid.

7. A method of controlling a drive voltage to a wireless receiver unit (10), comprising:

providing a parity check to the stream of digital bits at the output of the wireless receiver unit;

deriving a control output based on a comparison of the results of the parity check and a target parity error rate; and

providing the drive voltage to the wireless receiver unit (10), in dependence on the control unit output.

8. A method as claimed in claim 7, further comprising quantizing the control output.

9. A method as claimed in claim 7 or 8, comprising implementing a voltage overscaling function for the wireless receiver unit.

10. A method as claimed in one of claims 7 to 9, comprising receiving a parity bit with each packet of a packetized data stream.

11. A method as claimed in one of claims 7 to 10 performed in a battery operated device.

12. A method as claimed in claim 11 performed in a hearing aid.