861 results about "Greek letter sigma" patented technology

An isolation system is provided that is suitable for use in telephony, medical instrumentation, industrial process control and other applications. Preferred embodiments of the invention comprise a capacitive isolation barrier across which a digital signal is communicated. The system provides a means of communication across the isolation barrier that is highly immune to amplitude and phase noise interference. Clock recovery circuitry may be employed on one side of the isolation barrier to extract timing information from the digital signal communicated across the barrier, and to filter the effects of phase noise introduced at the barrier. Delta-sigma converters may be disposed on both sides of the isolation barrier to convert signals between analog and digital domains. An isolated power supply may also be provided on the isolated side of the barrier, whereby direct current is generated in response to the digital data received across the isolation barrier. A bidirectional isolation system is provided whereby bidirectional communication of digital signals is accomplished using a single pair of isolation capacitors. In preferred embodiments, the digital data communicated across the barrier consists of digital delta-sigma data signals multiplexed in time with other digital control, signaling and framing information. Finally, the isolation system may include a pulse transformer to accommodate ADSL circuitry, whereby power is transmitted through the pulse transformer.

A class AD audio amplifier system (10) with DC output detection logic (26) is disclosed. The amplifier system (10) includes multiple audio channels (20), each of which includes a pulse-width-modulator (PWM) (24). The DC detection logic (26) includes a sigma-delta modulator (60) and a digital low-pass filter (62) that monitors the PWM output signals from the PWM modulators (24). The sigma-delta modulator (60) operates at a first clock frequency, while the low-pass filter (62) operates at a much lower clock frequency, so that AC audio components, PWM harmonics, and sigma-delta quantization error is suppressed from the DC detection. The modulated filtered signal is compared against a threshold level (THRSH) to determine whether the amplitude of a DC component at the PWM output is sufficiently high to constitute a fault. If so, a fault detection signal (DC_DET) is issued, and the PWM modulators (24) are disabled to prevent unsafe conditions in the system (10).