Software portable telephone

• US 7,031,749 B1
• Filed: 03/22/2000
• Issued: 04/18/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/1999
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Original Assignee: NEC Corporation
• Inventors: Mitama, Masataka
• Primary Examiner(s): Urban, Edward F.
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, THUAN T
• Application Number:
  US09/532,894
• Time in Patent Office: 2,218 Days
• Field of Search: 455/556, 455/553, 455/557, 455/558, 455/552, 455/575, 455/95, 455/349, 455/76, 455/566, 455/556.1, 455/556.2, 455/575.1, 455/91, 455/96, 455/99, 455/100, 455/127.4, 455/130, 455/140, 455/403, 455/414.1, 455/425
• US Class Current: 455/556.1
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/00 Details of transmission systems, not covered by a single one of groups H04B3/00 - H04B13/00; Details of transmission systems not characterised by the medium used for transmission
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/0003 Software-defined radio [SDR] systems, i.e. systems wherein components typically implemented in hardware, e.g. filters or modulators/demodulators, are implented using software, e.g. by involving an AD or DA conversion stage such that at least part of the signal processing is performed in the digital domain digital baseband systems H04L25/00; digital modulation/demodulation H04L27/00; CDMA H04B1/707; TDMA H04B7/2643; image transmission H04N5/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04B 1/40 Circuits

Abstract

Received signal inputted from an antenna 1 is fed via a received signal mixer 2 and an A/D converter 3 to a demodulator 4. The demodulator 4 is operated according to software down-loaded in a software memory 5 from a program memory 6. A demodulator output digital signal is fed to a base-band signal processor 8 for signal processing, and then fed out through a man-machine interface 9 to the outside. On the transmission side, a signal to be transmitted is inputted to a modulator 10 though a route converse to that of the received signal. The modulator output is fed to a D/A converter 11 for conversion to an analog signal, which is in turn fed to a transmission signal mixer 12 for conversion to a carrier frequency, and then fed to a module, which includes a power amplifier 21, a transmission signal filter 22 and an isolator 23, to be transmitted via the antenna 1.

Claims

1. A software portable telephone set comprising:

a detachable transmitting function part; and

transmitting and receiving circuits capable of being reconfigured afresh with software program updating,

wherein the transmitting circuit is reconfigured afresh with said program updating in relation to the mounting and demounting of said transmitting function part, and

wherein said detachable transmitting function part conditions a transmission frequency signal received from said transmitting circuit.

2. The software portable telephone set according to claim 1, wherein said transmitting function part comprises a detachable module for transmitting a modulated output analog signal.

3. The software portable telephone set according to claim 2, wherein the detachable module comprises one of a power amplifier, a transmission signal filter and an isolator.

4. The software portable telephone set according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting and receiving circuits comprise a software memory part for executing signal conversion processing, programs transferred from a program memory being set in the software memory part.

5. The software portable telephone set according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting and receiving circuits comprise one of a demodulator, a modulator and a wide-band synthesizer which are controlled by a program stored in a software memory part.

6. The software portable telephone set according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting and receiving circuits comprise a software memory part for executing signal conversion processing, programs transferred from a program memory being set in the software memory part and a plurality of programs for commanding signal conversion processing being stored in the program memory.

7. The software portable telephone set according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting and receiving circuits comprise a software memory part for executing a signal conversion processing, programs transferred from a program memory being set in the software memory part and the software memory provides commands according to a program transferred from the program memory according to a system switching command.

8. The software portable telephone set of claim 1, wherein said detachable transmitting function part conditions the transmission frequency signal received from said transmitting circuit based upon a transmission system that corresponds to said detachable transmitting function part.

9. The software portable telephone set of claim 1, wherein said transmitting circuit comprises a wide-band transmitting circuit.

10. The software portable telephone set of claim 1, wherein said transmitting circuit comprises a transmission frequency signal synthesizer.

11. The software portable telephone set of claim 10, wherein said transmission frequency signal synthesizer comprises a wide-band synthesizer.

12. The software portable telephone set of claim 1, wherein said transmitting circuit comprises a software memory that is reconfigured afresh in relation to the mounting and demounting of the detachable transmitting function part.

13. The software portable telephone set of claim 12, wherein the software memory is reconfigured afresh in relation to the mounting and demounting of the detachable transmitting function part by replacing a first signal processing program in the software memory with a second signal processing program from a program memory.

14. The software portable telephone set of claim 13, wherein the first signal processing program comprises instructions for performing signal conversion processing.

15. The software portable telephone set of claim 1, further comprising a plurality of detachable transmitting function parts.

16. The software portable telephone set of claim 15, wherein each of said plurality of detachable transmitting function parts performs a different frequency band operation.

17. The software portable telephone set of claim 1, wherein said transmitting circuit that is reconfigured afresh comprises at least one of a demodulator, a wide-band synthesizer, a base-band signal processor, and a modulator.

18. A portable telephone set comprising:

a body;

a transmitting circuit within said body; and

a transmission function unit for performing a specified transmission process being detachably mounted to said body of the portable telephone set,

wherein proper operation of the transmitting circuit occurs on the basis of a selected predetermined software program associated with the transmission function unit, and

wherein said detachable transmitting function unit conditions a transmission frequency signal received from said transmitting circuit.

19. The portable telephone set according to claim 18, wherein the predetermined software program is selected from a plurality of software programs stored in a memory in the portable telephone set.

20. The portable telephone set according to claim 19, further comprising a receive processing unit, wherein the plurality of software programs are stored in a software source memory, one of the plurality of software programs is selected and down-loaded and an operation of the receive processing unit is defined by the down-loaded software program.

21. The portable telephone set according to claim 18, further comprising a receive function unit comprising a received signal mixing portion, a demodulating portion and a base band signal processing portion, wherein an operation of said received signal mixing portion, said demodulating portion and said base band signal processing portion in the receive function unit is determined on the basis of the predetermined software program.

22. The portable telephone set according to claim 18, wherein said transmission function unit comprises one of a plurality of transmission function units each performing a different frequency band operation.

23. The portable telephone set according to claim 18, wherein the transmission function unit comprises one of an amplifier, a transmission signal filter and an isolator.

24. The portable telephone set according to claim 18, wherein the transmission function unit comprises a software memory for storing one of a plurality of software programs each adapted to each transmission function unit, the predetermined software program being defined by loading the software program from the software memory in the mounted transmission function unit.

25. The portable telephone set according to claim 18, further comprising a receipt function unit, wherein a currently operating system is detected on the basis of a demodulated output of a received signal in the receipt function unit and the detected system is displayed.

26. The portable telephone set of claim 18, wherein said detachable transmitting function part conditions the transmission frequency signal received from said transmitting circuit based upon a transmission system that corresponds to said detachable transmitting function part.

27. The portable telephone set of claim 18, wherein said transmitting circuit comprises a wide-band transmitting circuit.