High density random access memory in an intelligent electric device

• US 6,957,158 B1
• Filed: 12/23/2002
• Issued: 10/18/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2002
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Schneider Electric USA, Inc. (Schneider Electric SE)
• Original Assignee: Power Measurement Ltd. (Schneider Electric SE)
• Inventors: Hancock, Martin A., Lightbody, Simon H., Taylor, Aaron J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bui, Bryan
• Assistant Examiner(s): LE, JOHN H
• Application Number:
  US10/328,397
• Time in Patent Office: 1,030 Days
• Field of Search: 702 61- 64, 702/176, 365/112, 365/158, 365/163, 365/200, 324/247, 438/289, 438/128, 709/224, 359/22, 714/6, 340/870.02, 700/291, 710/308
• US Class Current: 702/61
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 19/2513 Arrangements for monitoring electric power systems, e.g. power lines or loads; Logging
• CPC Class Codes: G11C 5/145 Applications of charge pumps; Boosted voltage circuits; Clamp circuits therefor G11C5/141 takes precedence

Abstract

Methods and devices for monitoring distributed electric power are disclosed, including energy devices with a sensor for monitoring an electric circuit, and a memory to store sensor measurements. Various techniques are disclosed for using polymeric RAM, 1T-DRAM, enhanced SRAM, magnetoresistive RAM, organic RAM, chalcogenide RAM, holographic memory, PLEDM, single-electron RAM, fractal cluster glass memory and other technologies in energy devices with high-endurance, high-density, high-capacity, non-volatile, solid-state, or removable memories.

Claims

1. An energy device for monitoring electrical energy delivered through an electric circuit, the energy device comprising:

a sensor configured to sense an operating characteristic of the electric circuit and generate digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic;

a memory coupled to the sensor, the memory including at least one portion of high density non-volatile memory, the memory having an endurance of at least 1,000,000,000 erase events, at least a portion of the memory being configured to store data, wherein the memory is further operative to store operating data and is ready to provide device operations to at least one microprocessor as soon as power is applied to the energy device;

at least one data interface; and

the microprocessor coupled to the memory and to the data interface, the microprocessor configured to provide the data from the memory to the data interface.

2. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the sensor comprises an analog sensor configured to generate an analog signal indicative of the operating characteristic;

and, an analog to digital converter coupled with the sensor and operative to convert the analog signal to one or more digital samples.

3. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the sensor comprises a digital sensor configured to directly generate one or more digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic.

4. The energy device of claim 1, wherein at least one data interface is an external communication port.

5. The energy device of claim 1, wherein at least one data interface is a user display.

6. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the operating characteristic is the voltage of the electric circuit.

7. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the operating characteristic is indicative of current delivered through the electric circuit.

8. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the operating characteristic is indicative of energy delivered through the electric circuit.

9. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the energy device is a revenue meter and the data stored in the memory is indicative of energy supplied to a consumer site.

10. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the energy device is a relay.

11. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the energy device is a power quality device.

12. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the data comprises digital samples.

13. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the data comprises setup data.

14. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises non-destructive read out ferroelectric random access memory.

15. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises polymeric ferroelectric random access memory.

16. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises one transistor dynamic RAM (1T-DRAM).

17. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises enhanced SRAM.

18. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises magnetoresistive random access memory.

19. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises organic random access memory.

20. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises chalcogenide random access memory.

21. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises holographic random access memory.

22. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises phase-state low-electron drive memory.

23. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the high density memory comprises single-electron random access memory.

24. The energy device of claim 1, wherein the device is operational upon the microprocessor'"'"'s execution of the device operations.

25. The energy device of claim 1, where the data comprises security data.

26. An energy device for monitoring electrical energy delivered through an electric circuit, the energy device comprising:

a sensor configured to sense an operating characteristic of the electric circuit and generate digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic;

a memory coupled to the sensor, the memory comprising a portion of high density, non-volatile memory operative to store data when no electrical power is supplied to the memory, the memory having an endurance of at least 1,000,000,000 erase events, and the memory being configured to store data, wherein the memory is further operative to store operating data and is ready to provide device operations to at least one microprocessor as soon as power is applied to the energy device;

at least one data interface; and

the microprocessor coupled to the memory and to the data interface, the microprocessor configured to provide the data from the memory to the data interface;

wherein the microprocessor is operative to use user-programmable instructions stored in the memory.

27. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the sensor comprises an analog sensor configured to generate an analog signal indicative of the operating characteristic;

and, an analog to digital converter coupled with the sensor and operative to convert the analog signal to one or more digital samples.

28. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the sensor comprises a digital sensor configured to directly generate one or more digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic.

29. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the operating characteristic is the voltage of the electric circuit.

30. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the energy device is a revenue meter and at least a portion of the data stored in the memory is indicative of energy supplied to a consumer site.

31. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the energy device is a relay.

32. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the energy device is a power quality device.

33. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the data comprises digital samples.

34. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the data comprises setup data.

35. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises non-destructive read out ferroelectric random access memory.

36. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises polymeric ferroelectric random access memory.

37. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises magnetoresistive random access memory.

38. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises organic random access memory.

39. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises chalcogenide random access memory.

40. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises holographic random access memory.

41. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises phase-state low-electron drive memory.

42. The energy device of claim 26, wherein the non-volatile memory comprises single-electron random access memory.

43. An energy device for monitoring electrical energy delivered through an electric circuit, the energy device comprising:

a sensor configured to sense an operating characteristic of the electric circuit and generate digital samples through an analog to digital converter indicative of the operating characteristic;

an organic random access memory coupled to the analog to digital converter, the organic random access memory being configured to store data in response to the digital samples, wherein the memory is operative to store operating data and is ready to provide device operations to at least one microprocessor as soon as power is applied to the energy device;

at least one data interface coupled with the sensor; and

the microprocessor coupled to the memory and to the data interface, the microprocessor configured to provide the data from the memory to the data interface;

wherein the microprocessor is operative to use user-programmable instructions stored in the memory to implement input/output control.

44. The energy device of claim 43, wherein the sensor comprises an analog sensor configured to generate an analog signal indicative of the operating characteristic;

and, an analog to digital converter coupled with the sensor and operative to convert the analog signal to one or more digital samples.

45. The energy device of claim 43, wherein the operating characteristic is the voltage of the electric circuit.

46. An Intelligent Electronic Device (“

IED”

) for measuring the delivery of electrical energy from an energy supplier through an electric circuit, the IED comprising;

a sensor configured to sense an operating characteristic of the electric circuit and generate digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic;

a memory coupled to the sensor, the memory including at least one memory device comprising at least 1 megabytes of non-volatile, solid state storage operative to store data when no electrical power is supplied to the memory, the memory having an endurance of at least 1,000,000,000 erase events and operative to store said digital samples for at least one year, and at least a portion of the memory being configured to store data in the form of logs in response to the digital samples wherein the memory is further operative to store operating data and is ready to provide device operations to a microprocessor as soon as power is applied to the IED;

at least one data interface; and

the microprocessor coupled to the memory and to the data interface, the microprocessor configured to provide the data from the memory to the data interface;

wherein the microprocessor is operative to store information on a power quality event in the memory.

47. The IED of claim 46, wherein the sensor comprises an analog sensor configured to generate an analog signal indicative of the operating characteristic;

and, an analog to digital converter coupled with the sensor and operative to convert the analog signal to one or more digital samples.

48. The IED of claim 46, wherein the sensor comprises a digital sensor configured to directly generate one or more digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic.

49. The IED of claim 46, wherein at least a portion of the solid state storage is high density memory.

50. The IED of claim 46, wherein at least a portion of the solid state storage is removable.

51. The IED of claim 46, wherein the capacity of the solid state storage includes at least sixty four megabytes of data sample memory.

52. The IED of claim 46, wherein the capacity of the memory includes at least one gigabyte of data sample memory.

53. The IED of claim 46, wherein a portion of the memory is removable.

54. The IED of claim 46, wherein the operating characteristic is the voltage of the electric circuit.

55. The IED of claim 46, wherein the operating characteristic is indicative of power delivered through the electric circuit.

56. The IED of claim 46, wherein the IED is a revenue meter and the data stored in the memory is indicative of energy supplied to a consumer site.

57. The IED of claim 46, wherein the IED is a relay.

58. The IED of claim 46, wherein the data comprises digital samples.

59. The IED of claim 46, wherein the data comprises setup data.

60. The IED of claim 46, wherein at least a portion of the memory comprises at least one memory type selected from the group comprising holographic storage and fractal cluster glass memory.

61. The IED of claim 46, further wherein the solid state memory comprises at least one memory type selected from the group comprising polymeric ferroelectric random access memory, polymer random access memory, and non destructive read out ferroelectric random access memory.

62. The IED of claim 46, further wherein the solid state memory comprises at least one memory type selected from the group comprising magnetoresistive random access memory, fractal cluster glass random access memory, chalcogenide random access memory, holographic random access memory, phase-state low-electron drive memory (PLEDM), and single-electron-memory.

63. An Intelligent Electronic Device (“

IED”

) for measuring the delivery of electrical energy from an energy supplier through an electric circuit, the IED comprising;

a sensor configured to sense an operating characteristic of the electric circuit and generate digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic;

a non-volatile solid-state memory coupled to the sensor, the memory having an endurance of at least 1,000,000,000 erase events;

at least one data interface; and

a microprocessor coupled to the memory and to the data interface, the microprocessor configured to provide the data from the memory to the data interface;

wherein a portion of the memory is removable and operative to store digital samples for at least one year, wherein said memory is further operative to store operating data and is ready to provide device operations to the microprocessor as soon as power is applied to the IED.

64. An energy device for monitoring electrical energy delivered through an electric circuit, the energy device comprising:

a sensor configured to sense an operating characteristic of the electric circuit and generate digital samples indicative of the operating characteristic;

a non-volatile solid-state memory coupled to the sensor, the memory having an endurance of at least 1,000,000.000 erase events;

at least one data interface; and

at least one microprocessor coupled to the memory and to the data interface, the microprocessor configured to provide the data from the memory to the data interface;

wherein the microprocessor is operative to use user-programmable instructions stored in the memory;

wherein the memory is operative to store operating data, the memory is ready to provide device operations to the microprocessor as soon as power is applied to the energy device.

65. The energy device of claim 64, wherein at least a portion of the solid state memory is removable.

66. The energy device of claim 64, wherein the user-programmable instructions stored in the memory implement input/output control for the energy device.

67. The energy device of claim 64, wherein the user-programmable instructions stored in the memory implement communication and data file manipulation functions for the energy device.

68. The energy device of claim 64, wherein the user-programmable instructions stored in the memory implement power management control functions for the energy device.

69. The energy device of claim 64, wherein the operating characteristic is indicative of current delivered through the electric circuit.

70. The energy device of claim 64, wherein the microprocessor is operative to store information on a power quality event in the memory.

71. The energy device of claim 70, wherein the power quality event comprises a blackout.

72. The energy device of claim 70, wherein the power quality event comprises a brownout.

73. The energy device of claim 70, wherein the power quality event comprises a surge.

74. The energy device of claim 70, wherein the power quality event comprises a harmonic distortion.

75. The energy device of claim 70, wherein the power quality event comprises an overvoltage.

76. The energy device of claim 70, wherein the power quality event comprises an imbalance.