Texas Instruments Seeks Patent on Smart Batteries

Headquartered in Dallas, TX, the Texas Instruments Corporation is always among the world leaders in the manufacture of semiconductor technologies, including digital signal processors, analog semiconductors and cellular chipsets. Recently, the corporation has been pursuing a major exit from the wireless mobile market, announcing its intentions to sell a wireless and analog factory in Nice, France. TI has been receiving a lot of praise for its recent microtechnology developments, including an award-winning digital micromirror device (DMD) for near-infrared (NIR) light process. Texas Instruments is another company moving into the “Internet of Things” sector, evidenced by its recent partnership with an Indian IT services firm to develop “IoT” systems for automobile, medical and industrial corporations.

In today’s Companies We Follow column, we return for a quick look at Texas Instruments, who we’ve profiled in the past. This corporation always has a healthy number of innovations traveling through the halls of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on any given week. Like always, we’ve done our part to identify the most intriguing innovations coming out of the research and development activities of this manufacturer for our readers’ enjoyment.

We begin today’s profile with an in-depth look at a featured patent application describing better security systems for smart batteries in use by a wide array of mobile electronic devices. The advanced circuitry of these batteries would allow for the same amount of compatibility among generic chargers while dissuading would-be copiers from cloning batteries. We also discuss some interesting innovations related to computerized key fobs for secure vehicle access and a couple of improvements to integrated circuit and semiconductor manufacturing.

Our check-in with Texas Instruments’ recently issued patents continues where we left off with electronics manufacturing technologies. TI was recently awarded the right to protect a couple of new manufacturing system and hardware improvements, including a device that can provide better cleaning of semiconductor wafers without damaging electronic circuitry. We were also piqued by a newly patented system that allows classroom instructors to check the work of their students through their calculators.

System and Method for Secure Authentication of a “Smart” Battery by a Host
U.S. Patent Application No. 20140075194

As electronic devices used by businesses and consumers have grown in complexity, so have the utility systems supporting these devices. Today, even batteries have become “smart” and now contain circuitry that performs processing of battery usage. This data is often returned to a device user through the display, and can even tell that user how much battery power is being used by each individual program currently running.

This circuitry also allows the battery to identify itself when connected to a charger. Generic chargers are able to utilize different charging algorithms for several battery types, and this identification informs the charger of which algorithm to use. While it’s not desirable to encrypt the battery and make it difficult for a charger to identify, it’s still relatively easy for the battery to be cloned by others, creating an unlicensed product reducing sales.

Texas Instruments filed this patent application with the USPTO in the hopes of protecting a smart battery system that has better protections against being cloned. The battery circuitry described here includes a tamper resistant processing environment, within which is stored an identity key generator. The identity key generator allows the battery to identify itself to a host charger while the tamper resistant processing environment frustrates any attempt to clone.

The identity key generator, which can create unique identification keys for a battery, provides an extra level of security to this system. Even within a tamper resistant environment, a malicious agent who is able to determine a single identity key is able to clone the battery, and the charger cannot determine the copy from the original. The identity key generator serves to encrypt the message sent to the charger using an advanced standard, such as triple Data Encryption Standard (3DES).

Claim 1 of this Texas Instruments patent application would give the company the right to protect:

“A battery comprising: A. an interface including a power bus and a data bus; B. an integrated circuit including: i. a public bus connected with the data bus; ii. a public non-volatile memory connected with the public bus; iii. a public RAM connected with the public bus; iv. a private bus separate from the data bus; v. processor circuitry separately connected with the public bus and the private bus; vi. a private non-volatile memory connected only with the private bus; and vii. a private RAM connected only with the private bus; and C. in which the public non-volatile memory contains a root key index and an encrypted identity key, the private non-volatile memory contains an un-encrypted identity key, and in which the processor circuitry includes circuits to combine the unencrypted identity key with challenge data received over the public bus, and to send signed challenge data over the public bus.”

Other Patent Applications

From U.S. Patent Application No. 20140064888, entitled “Apparatus for Handling an Electronic Device and Related Methodology.”

As a major developer of semiconductor technologies, many of the innovations coming out of Texas Instruments’ facilities detail intriguing new systems of data processing. Although these are mostly for enterprise or manufacturing solutions, general readers will be interested to know about this company’s interest in improving computing technologies.

For example, U.S. Patent Application No. 20140064888, which is titled Apparatus for Handling an Electronic Device and Related Methodology, would protect a handling device used during the manufacture of integrated circuit devices. The handling device described is able to pick up and move an integrated circuit device being assembled from the device’s peripheral area. Prior methods of using hands or tweezers to move these items often damages the circuitry, which isn’t present on the peripheral area. U.S. Patent Application No. 20140068361, which is titled Offline at Start Up of a Powered On Device, discusses an tiny but useful innovation for printed circuit board testing. This system allows devices communicating on the Joint Test Action Group (JTAG) standard, used for testing printed circuit boards, to join a JTAG system that’s already enabled, which these systems couldn’t support in the past. This would allow an engineer or tester to join a project already in progress with much more ease.

We were also intrigued today by a number of patent applications seeking to protect useful security methods. These methods revolve around the computerization of an everyday device: the key fob. U.S. Patent Application No. 20140075186, filed under the title Multiple Access Key Fob, would protect a portable device that provides security access to a holder in multiple instances in response to a wireless data exchange. This device includes two keys, what the patent application calls a public and a private key, to provide access to a vehicle in a system where both the public and private keys are needed to gain access to the vehicle. U.S. Patent Application No. 20140064488, titled One-Way Key Fob and Vehicle Pairing, describes a similar device that is paired to an individual vehicle. This invention has been developed to enable better methods of creating multiple key fobs paired to a vehicle; it could be surmised upon reading the application that these key fobs would be subordinate to the main key, or at least do not provide the same level of vehicle system control.

Issued Patents of Note 

Figure 5 from From U.S. Patent No. 8,663,490, which is titled “Semiconductor Wafer Handler.”

As much as we enjoy the look ahead at what the future may hold for the world of intellectual property, we always make sure to step back and take the time to check out recently issued patents. Here at IPWatchdog, we’re incredibly interested in what these major corporations are working hard to protect through the USPTO. Strong patent portfolios are very useful during patent litigation cases or for increasing revenues through licensing.

We continue today’s column with a look at even more semiconductor manufacturing inventions developed by Texas Instruments. Better tools and methods for the chemical mechanical polishing of a semiconductor are protected by U.S. Patent No. 8663490, titled Semiconductor Wafer Handler. This handling device applies vacuum forces to a wafer without affecting integrated circuits while allowing wafer cleaning by nitrogen gas or water. U.S. Patent No. 8669644, issued under the title Hydrogen Passivity of Integrated Units, protects a system that promotes hydrogen passivation during integrated circuit manufacture so as to reduce the formation of crystal defects in the substrate surface. We also found another patent protecting similar circuit board testing improvements mentioned above in U.S. Patent No. 8671319, titled Dynamic Device Identification for Making a JTAG Debug Connection With a Internet Browser. This system enables multiple JTAG devices to join a debug chain by creating an identification tag for a device that is to be debugged.

A couple of other Texas Instruments patented technologies we noticed today will likely impact at least some of our readers, even if the invention may improve our lives without being readily apparent. For example, U.S. Patent No. 8670345, which is titled Wireless Coexistence Based on Network Allocation Vector Usage, protects a system that enables electronic devices to use multiple wireless communication standards, such as Bluetooth or WLAN, without the use of one severely interrupting the use of the other. Finally, we take a look at one patent that seems to return to one of Texas Instruments’ traditional mainstays: the classroom. Renowned for manufacturing scientific calculators and other educational devices in use over the past few decades, TI is now improving the digital classroom with the system described in U.S. Patent No. 8650644, entitled Invitation for Transferring Objects in a Communications Network. This system would allow an instructor to gather data from a student’s calculator regarding their work on a certain assignment or exam.