DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to the application filed on 11 November 2024.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1,2,4,13,14, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Manmeet Singh et. al (2019 IEEE 62nd International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems; hereafter “Singh”).
-Regarding claim 1:
Singh discloses:
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A multi-phase switching converter (Fig. 1) to provide a regulated supply voltage from an input voltage (Fig. 1; Vin), said multi-phase switching converter comprising: a plurality of power stages (Fig. 1; Phase(1)..(n)), each power stage to drive a corresponding inductor (Fig. 1; L(1)…) to cause flow of a corresponding inductor-current according to a respective phase control signal (Fig. 1; Ctrl), wherein said corresponding inductor-currents from each of said plurality of power stages together constitute a load-current of said multi-phase switching converter (Fig. 1; Each inductor current constitutes load-current to Vout.); and a phase controller to determine a frequency of said phase control signals based on magnitudes of said inductor-currents (Fig. 1; Global PWM/PFM controller determines a frequency based on inductor current at node Vout.), and to generate said phase control signals with said frequency.
-Regarding claim 13:
Singh discloses:
A phase controller for generating phase control signals (Fig. 1; Ctrl) in a multi-phase switching converter (Fig. 1), said phase controller to: receive magnitudes of corresponding inductor-currents (Fig. 1; currents through L(1)…) from a plurality of power stages (Fig. 1; Phase(1)..(n)) of said multi-phase switching converter, wherein said corresponding inductor-currents (Fig. 1; currents through L(1)…) from each of said plurality of power stages together constitute a load-current of said multi-phase switching converter (Fig. 1; Each inductor current constitutes load-current to Vout.); determine, based on said magnitudes of said corresponding inductor-currents, a frequency at which said phase control signals are to be generated (Fig. 1; Global PWM/PFM controller determines a frequency based on inductor current at node Vout.); and generate said phase control signals with said determined frequency and provide said phase control signals to said plurality of power stages.
-Regarding claim 2:
Singh discloses:
The multi-phase switching converter of claim 1, wherein each power stage of said plurality of power stages sends information on the corresponding inductor-current to said phase controller (Fig. 1; Control State-Machine receives inductor current information from each power stage.), wherein said phase controller determines said frequency as an optimal frequency at which said plurality of power stages operate with optimal power efficiency (paragraph II; “Pulse Frequency Modulation (PFM) control is employed to scale the switching losses with the load to maintain high efficiency”).
-Regarding claim 14:
Singh discloses:
The phase controller of claim 13, wherein each power stage of said plurality of power stages sends information on the corresponding inductor-current to said phase controller (Fig. 1; Control State-Machine receives inductor current information from each power stage.), wherein said frequency is determined as an optimal frequency at which said plurality of power stages operate with optimal power efficiency (paragraph II; “Pulse Frequency Modulation (PFM) control is employed to scale the switching losses with the load to maintain high efficiency”).
-Regarding claim 4:
Singh discloses:
The multi-phase switching converter of claim 3, wherein said phase controller generates said phase control signals with said frequency and a duty-cycle determined by at least the magnitude of said regulated supply voltage (Fig. 1; Global PWM/PFM controller generates frequency and duty cycle based on regulated supply voltage-load voltage Vout.) and the magnitude of said input voltage (I would say that it is common to use input voltage as in reference papers I attached.).
-Regarding claim 16:
Singh discloses:
The phase controller of claim 15, wherein said phase controller to generate said phase control signals with said frequency and a duty-cycle determined by at least the magnitude of said regulated supply voltage (Fig. 1; Global PWM/PFM controller generates frequency and duty cycle based on regulated supply voltage-load voltage Vout.) and the magnitude of said input voltage (I would say that it is common to use input voltage as in reference papers I attached.).
Claims 3 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manmeet Singh et. al (2019 IEEE 62nd International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems) as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of A. Costabeber et.al (2009 35th Annual Conference of IEEE Industrial Electronics; hereafter “Costa”).
-Regarding claim 3:
However, Singh does not disclose frequency determination at each situation in multi-phase switching converter.
Costa, in the same field of endeavor, discloses:
The multi-phase switching converter of claim 2, wherein said phase controller determines said frequency to be a maximum frequency in a first duration (paragraph IV; “This configuration is used in the modern digital control of SMPSs
to increase the PWM modulator performances in terms of maximum switching frequency, duty-cycle precision, and area consumption.”) if at least one of a higher phase-count-demand, undershoot and over-current is detected, wherein said higher phase count demand refers to a condition wherein a load-current drawn from a rail in a period requires a higher number of power stages to be in active mode than in an immediately preceding period, wherein said undershoot is a decrease in magnitude of said regulated supply voltage wherein said magnitude of said regulated supply voltage falls below an allowed lower limit for said regulated supply voltage, and wherein said over-current is a condition wherein inductor-current corresponding to a power stage is in excess of a maximum limit (I would say that three types of above action are well-known to be related with the performance of PWM controller, and the increasing of PWM performance is well-within the skill of the person of ordinary skill in the art. I would then come up with a motivation to choose the increasing of PWM performance and give that as the rationale.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the device described in Singh such that a commonly used PWM performance control technique described in Costa is applied to the multi-phase switching converter. Doing so allows for improving the efficiency of the multi-phase switching converter.
-Regarding claim 15:
However, Singh does not disclose frequency determination at each situation in multi-phase switching converter.
Costa, in the same field of endeavor, discloses:
The phase controller of claim 14, wherein said phase controller to determine said frequency to be a maximum frequency in a first duration (paragraph IV; “This configuration is used in the modern digital control of SMPSs to increase the PWM modulator performances in terms of maximum switching frequency, duty-cycle precision, and area consumption.”) if at least one of a higher phase-count-demand, undershoot and over-current is detected, wherein said higher phase count demand refers to a condition wherein a load-current drawn from a rail of said multi-phase switching converter in a period requires a higher number of power stages to be in active mode than in an immediately preceding period, wherein said undershoot is a decrease in magnitude of a regulated supply voltage provided by a multi-phase switching converter, wherein said magnitude of said regulated supply voltage falls below an allowed lower limit for said regulated supply voltage, and wherein said over-current is a condition wherein inductor-current corresponding to a power stage is in excess of a maximum limit (I would say that three types of above action are well-known to be related with the performance of PWM controller, and the increasing of PWM performance is well-within the skill of the person of ordinary skill in the art. I would then come up with a motivation to choose the increasing of PWM performance and give that as the rationale.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the device described in Singh such that a commonly used PWM performance control technique described in Costa is applied to the multi-phase switching converter. Doing so allows for improving the efficiency of the multi-phase switching converter.
Claims 5 and 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manmeet Singh et. al (2019 IEEE 62nd International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems) and A. Costabeber et.al (2009 35th Annual Conference of IEEE Industrial Electronics) as applied to claim 3 above, and further in view of Yu-Ping Huang et.al (2011 IEEE International Symposium of Circuits and Systems; hereafter “Yu”).
-Regarding claim 5:
However, Singh and Costa do not disclose a phase controller in multi-phase switching converter.
Yu, in the same field of endeavor, discloses:
The multi-phase switching converter of claim 3, wherein each of said plurality of power stages generates a current-sense signal representing a magnitude of said corresponding inductor current (Fig. 2; current sense signal to current sensor signal from each power stage), wherein said phase controller comprises: a telemetry block to receive said current-sense signals and generate digital values (Fig. 2; current sensor doing this job) representing said magnitudes; a frequency determination block coupled to receive said digital values and to output said frequency (Fig. 2; PWM generator and COMP, I would say that it is common to use PWM/PFM for frequency determination as in reference papers I attached.); and a control block coupled to receive said frequency, and to generate said phase control signals with said frequency and said duty-cycle (Fig. 2; PWM generator).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the device described in Singh and Costa such that a commonly used phase controller described in Yu is applied to the multi-phase switching converter. Doing so allows for improving the efficiency of the multi-phase switching converter.
-Regarding claim 17:
However, Singh and Costa do not disclose a phase controller in multi-phase switching converter.
Yu, in the same field of endeavor, discloses:
The phase controller of claim 15, said phase controller comprising: a telemetry block to receive said current-sense signals and generate digital values representing said magnitudes (Fig. 2; current sensor doing this job); a frequency determination block coupled to receive said digital values and to output said frequency (Fig. 2; PWM generator and COMP, I would say that it is common to use PWM/PFM for frequency determination as in reference papers I attached.); and a control block coupled to receive said frequency, and to generate said phase control signals with said frequency and said duty-cycle (Fig. 2; PWM generator).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the device described in Singh and Costa such that a commonly used phase controller described in Yu is applied to the multi-phase switching converter. Doing so allows for improving the efficiency of the multi-phase switching converter.
Claims 6 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Manmeet Singh et. al (2019 IEEE 62nd International Midwest Symposium on Circuits and Systems), A. Costabeber et.al (2009 35th Annual Conference of IEEE Industrial Electronics), and Yu-Ping Huang et.al (2011 IEEE International Symposium of Circuits and Systems) as applied to claim 5 above, and further in view of D. Neumayr et.al (2017 IEEE 3rd International Future Energy Electronics Conference and ECCE Asia ; hereafter “Neumayr”).
-Regarding claim 6:
However, Singh, Costa, and Yu do not disclose a look-up table in multi-phase switching converter.
Neumayr, in the same field of endeavor, discloses:
The multi-phase switching converter of claim 5, wherein said frequency determination block comprises a look-up table (LUT) which maps different combinations of magnitudes of said inductor-currents to corresponding optimal frequencies (Fig. 8 a and b), wherein said frequency is determined by examining said LUT.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the device described in Singh, Costa and Yu such that a commonly used look-up table described in Neumayr is applied to the multi-phase switching converter. Doing so allows for improving the efficiency of the multi-phase switching converter.
-Regarding claim 18:
However, Singh, Costa, and Yu do not disclose a phase controller in multi-phase switching converter.
Neumayr, in the same field of endeavor, discloses:
The phase controller of claim 17, wherein said frequency determination block comprises a look-up table (LUT) which maps different combinations of magnitudes of said inductor-currents to corresponding optimal frequencies (Fig. 8 a and b), wherein said frequency is determined by examining said LUT.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the device described in Singh, Costa and Yu such that a commonly used look-up table described in Neumayr is applied to the multi-phase switching converter. Doing so allows for improving the efficiency of the multi-phase switching converter.
-Regarding claim 7-12:
For method claims 7-12, note that under MPEP 2112.02, the principles of inherency, if a prior art device, in its normal and usual operation, would necessarily perform the method claimed, then the method claimed will be considered to be anticipated by the prior art device. When the prior art is the same as a device described in the specification for carrying out the claimed method, it can be assumed the device “1 inherently performs the claimed process. In re King, 801 F.2d 1324, 231 UPSQ 136 (Fed Cir. 1986). Therefore, the previous rejections based on the apparatus will not be repeated.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SEUNG HO CHOI whose telephone number is (571)272-8188. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 7:30 AM - 5:30 PM ET.
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/SEUNG HO CHOI/Examiner, Art Unit 2838
/CRYSTAL L HAMMOND/Supervisory Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2838
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