ELECTRONIC APPARATUS AND A METHOD OF CONTROLLING THE SAME

• US 20140334636A1
• Filed: 02/25/2014
• Published: 11/13/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 05/08/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd.
• Inventors: PARK, Hyun-jun, KO, Ki-young
• Granted Patent: US 9,313,571 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 381/77
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/1698 the I/O peripheral being a sending/receiving arrangement to establish a cordless communication link, e.g. radio or infrared link, integrated cellular phone details of antennas disposed inside a computer H01Q1/2266
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3287 by switching off individual functional units in the computer system
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/165 Management of the audio stream, e.g. setting of volume, audio stream path
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72412 using two-way short-range wireless interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72442 for playing music files
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 2250/02 including a Bluetooth interface
• CPC Class Codes: H04R 3/00 Circuits for transducers , loudspeakers or microphones
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

An electronic apparatus includes a storage to store an operating system, a controller to boot the electronic apparatus using the operating system stored in the storage, a speaker to output sound, a communication interface to receive sound data from an external apparatus, and a sound processor to process and output the received sound data through the speaker, and the communication interface, the sound processor, and the speaker operate even when the electronic apparatus is not booted.

Claims

1. An electronic apparatus, comprising:

a storage to store an operating system;

a controller to boot the electronic apparatus using the operating system stored in the storage;

a speaker to output sound;

a communication interface to receive sound data from an external apparatus; and

a sound processor to process and output the received sound data through the speaker,

wherein the communication interface, the sound processor, and the speaker operate even when the electronic apparatus is not booted.

2. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the communication interface comprises:

a Bluetooth communicator to receive sound data using a Bluetooth method; and

wherein, when the electronic apparatus is booted, the Bluetooth communicator transmits the received sound data to the sound processor using a digital method, and when the electronic apparatus is not booted, transmits the received sound data to the sound processor using an analog method.

3. The apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein, when the electronic apparatus is booted, the Bluetooth communicator transmits the received sound data to the sound processor using a digital method by control of the controller, and, when the electronic apparatus is not booted, transmits the received sound data to the sound processor using an analog method without control of the controller.

4. The apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the sound processor comprises:

an audio amplifier to amplify sound data transmitted using an analog method and output the sound data through the speaker.

5. The apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein the audio amplifier operates only when the electronic apparatus is not booted.

6. The apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein the sound processor further comprises:

an audio codec to decode the sound data transmitted using the digital method and output the sound data through the speaker; and

a Platform Controller Hub (PCH) configured to transmit the sound data outputted from the Bluetooth communicator to the audio codec.

7. The apparatus as claimed in claim 6, wherein the audio codec operates by control of the controller when the electronic apparatus is booted.

8. The apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein, when the electronic apparatus is booted while the received sound data is transmitted to the sound processor using an analog method, the Bluetooth communicator transmits the received sound data to the sound processor using a digital method.

9. The apparatus as claimed in claim 4, wherein the electronic apparatus further comprises:

a power supply configured to supply power to each component of the electronic apparatus; and

wherein, even when a booting instruction to the electronic apparatus is not inputted, the power supply supplies power to the Bluetooth communicator and the audio amplifier, and supplies no power to the controller and the storage.

10. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the communication interface comprises:

a first Bluetooth communicator to operate only when the electronic apparatus is booted, and to exchange data with the external apparatus using a Bluetooth method; and

a second Bluetooth communicator to receive sound data from the external apparatus using a Bluetooth method and transmit the received sound data to the sound processor using an analog method.

11. The apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein, when sound data is received using a Bluetooth method, the first Bluetooth communicator transmits the received sound data to the sound processor using a digital method.

12. The apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the first Bluetooth communicator operates by control of the controller, and the second Bluetooth communicator operates with or without control of the controller.

13. The apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the sound processor comprises:

an audio amplifier to amplify the sound data transmitted through the second Bluetooth communicator and output the sound data through the speaker;

an audio codec to operate when the electronic apparatus is booted, to decode the sound data transmitted using the digital method, and to output the sound data through the speaker; and

a PCH to transmit the sound data outputted from the first Bluetooth communicator to the audio codec.

14. The apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the audio processor further comprises:

a switch to selectively transmit the sound data outputted from the audio amplifier or the audio codec to the speaker.

15. The apparatus as claimed in claim 10, wherein the storage stores sound source data, and

wherein, when the second Bluetooth communicator receives sound data from a first external apparatus, the controller controls the second Bluetooth communicator to transmit the sound source data to a second external apparatus.

16. The apparatus as claimed in claim 13, further comprising:

a power supply to supply power to each component of the electronic apparatus,

wherein, when a booting instruction to the electronic apparatus is not inputted, the power supply supplies power to the second Bluetooth communicator and the audio amplifier, and supplies no power to the controller, the storage, the first Bluetooth communicator, the audio codec, and the PCH.

17. The apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the electronic apparatus is an all-in-one PC or a notebook computer.

18. An electronic apparatus comprising:

a speaker to output sound data as sound; and

a communication interface to be in a state to, when the electronic apparatus is in a power-off state, receive sound data from an external apparatus and transmit the received sound data to a sound processor which processes the sound data such that the speaker outputs the processed sound data as sound when the electronic apparatus is in the power-off state.

19. A method of controlling an electronic apparatus, the method comprising:

receiving sound data from an external apparatus; and

outputting the sound data as sound from a speaker of the electronic apparatus such that the receiving and outputting are performed when the electronic apparatus is in a power-off state.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium to contain computer-readable codes as a program to perform the method of claim 19.