Method and apparatus for computing device with status display
Contents
1. lt SER1 gt I68pin Header Header 2320 IR UNIT Es 60 70 PCMCIAx2 58 D SUB9pin Male 68pin Head D pri Serial Port PCMCIA ATA ET al FDD Port CONNECTOR CONNECTOR pata 82 84 MODEM PAGER sei RAM Radio 86 Mitsubishi M38802M2 96 POWER SUPPLY UNIT MiniDIN6pin Female Keyboard POWER CONTROL MPU BIOS Flash Memory Intel N28F010 120 90 94 FIG 1 U S Patent Oct 30 2001 Sheet 2 of 6 US 6 311 282 B1 Port Address FD61H INDEX 32H Read Write Initial FFH Es sa ee ee ee RRQ2 RRQ RRao BGoP sDIK Hst Hso FIG 2A Port Address FD61H INDEX 33H Read Write Initial OOH a ee EST SESI ee ea wapiti L BG ICON URG BL URGON BOXB BOXOUT BOX IN FIG 2B Port Address FD61H INDEX 34H Read Write Initial FEH ae aes ee ee ee ee ee ee E 6 a po faao FIG 2C Port Address FD61H INDEX 2DH Read Write Initial FFH P ss a Ma a ee O ee uee iee FIG 2D U S Patent Oct 30 2001 Sheet 3 of 6 US 6 311 282 B1 Initial System State event Resulting System State Suspend Resume button pressed Background Suspend Request PPMI aSpa I el or Suspend Resume button pressed Background Suspend Ring Wait or Suspend Request PPMI Save to Disk Background Operation Suspend Ring Wait or disabled PPMI Save to Disk Suspend Resume button pressed a o Suspend Resume on Pager SMI en2. ted to pager 84 This program is the resume code in the BIOS which is executed in SMM after receipt by main processor 10 of the SMI Additionally depending upon the contents of the paging message additional application pro grams can be automatically launched by main processor 10 without user intervention This feature is supported in the BIOS e g the commer cially available Phoenix Technologies BIOS referred to above stored in memory 90 as follows A parameter is provided in the BIOS which either enables or disables the resume on pager feature When this feature is enabled the processor 10 resumes operation from the suspend state if a paging message is received This suspend state is as described above wherein the main processor 10 effectively suspends execution but saves its previous state thereby minimizing power consumption but allowing quick resump tion of full operation This is a well known feature of the 486 type of microprocessors and is not described further herein Thus with reference to FIG 1 a paging message is conven tionally transmitted from an external source to the pager 84 This paging message is then sent via the pager interface 46 to the ASIC 44 and then the ASIC 44 generates an SMI which is sent to the main processor 10 which in response puts the computing device into the background state whereby the main processor 10 operates at its full clock speed but the other peripherals such as the display 18 and ke
3. RAM 28 and connected via 88 pin connector 30 a JEIDA DRAM memory card 34 including additional random access memory Connected to the portion 22A of bus 22 is an interface and power management integrated circuit 38 which in this case is an ASIC applications specific integrated circuit i e a gate array which includes various functions The first function is a multiplexed serial port IR interface 44 which connects via a 232C driver circuit 58 to a 9 pin connector 60 for connection to a serial port device Port 44 also connects to an infrared unit 62 which provides infrared serial commu nications Thus there are two 16C550 UARTS in the Western US 6 311 282 B1 5 Digital WD8120LV chip 54 UART 44 is multiplexed by ASIC 38 between 9 pin connector 60 and an IR unit 62 The other UART is connected to RF modem 82 The next element is the pager interface 46 which is an 16C450 interface connectable via connector 78 to a pager 84 Also provided is the 16C450 tablet interface 48 which is connected to a tablet unit 64 This is for a conventional pen based input The tablet unit 64 is located physically under the screen 18 A power management function portion 50 is described in greater detail below ATA portion 52 connects via a buffer 66 to a connector 68 for PCMCIA ATA which is a hard disk drive interface similar to the IDE interface Integrated Drive Electronics Also connected to the ASIC 38 is a super I O chip 54 e g the WD8120LV w
4. operation 0 ICON OFF 1 ICON ON Display Bit 4 5 URG_XX Urgent Icon This bit controls the icon of URGENT Bit 4 URG_BL Urgent Icon blink 0 No blink 1 Blink Bit 3 URG_ON Urgent Icon ON OFF 0 ICON OFF 1 ICON ON Bit 2 0 BOX_ XX IN OUT BOX Icon This bit controls the icon of IN OUT BOX Bit 2 BOX_ B BOX Icon of IN OUT BOX ON OFF 0 ICON OFF 1 ICON ON Display Bit 1 BOX OUT OUT Icon of IN OUT BOX ON OFF 0 ICON OFF 1 ICON ON Display Bit 0 BOX IN IN Icon of IN OUT BOX ON OFF 0 ICON OFF 1 ICON ON Display The power MPU acknowledge register of FIG 2C con trols the power source switching for the radio modem 82 and has the single bit as follows Bit 0 RADIOAK Radio Acknowledge When the power source switching requested by Radio RQ is completed this bit becomes 1 Nack negative acknowledge is informed by more than 500 ms of no response against Radio RQ 0 none or Nack 1 Power source switching completed The power MPU status register of FIG 2D has the meaning as follows Bit 3 ACPWR AC Power Source This bit shows the status of external power source input 0 External power source inputting 1 No external power source input 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 10 continued Bit 2 LLB Low Low Battery This bit shows the status of the main battery of the computing device 0 Low low battery need to
5. registers in ASIC 44 to support the above described power control features FIG 2A shows a host command status register where the bits have the following significance Bit 7 5 RRQ2 0 Radio Request Request code for power source of RF modem radio module US 6 311 282 B1 RRQ 2 0 Request 0 0 0 Reset of acknowledge 1 1 0H1 1 1 Reserved 0 0 1 Reserved 0 1 0 Power source for COM Module ON 0 1 1 Reserved 1 0 0 Reserved 1 0 1 Power source for COM Module OFF Bit 3 BG_OP Back Ground Operation This bit informs of the background state to Power MPU96 Whenever the computing device enters into the background state this bit is set 0 Background Mode Disabled 1 Background Mode Enabled Bit 2 S_DISK Save to Disk Mode This bit informs of the setting of system set up menu to Power MPU 96 Change of the system setting is reflected in this bit 0 Save to Disk 1 Memory Suspend Bit 1 0 HSI 0 Host Status These bits inform of the system state e g ON Background Waiting or Suspend Every change of the state is reflected in this bit HS1 0 0 0 Suspend 0 1 RI Waiting 1 0 Background operation 1 1 ON The icon display register controls the urgent message feature and as shown in FIG 2B has bits having the following significance Bit 5 BG ICON Background Operation Icon This bit turns on or off the icon on status display 20 indicating Background
6. running in the background state can warn the user of an urgent message by using the status display in response for instance to a received paging message which wakes the computer from the suspended state and puts it in the background state The urgent message icon can flash on and off to better attract attention of the user This indicates a received paging message for instance or initial receipt of a paging message followed by after the RF modem is turned on a longer message received via the RF modem Thus an application program running in the back ground state may turn on the urgent message icon to indicate receipt of an urgent message and then again suspend opera tion of the computing device while the urgent message icon continues to be displayed and or to flash That is to say this status display 20 continues to provide an indicator even in the suspend state of the computing device This status display 20 is e g a reflective not backlit LCD to minimize power drain so that it at least a portion of it is powered on at all times while drawing minimum power FIGS 4A 4B and 4C show a exemplary application computer program for controlling the urgent message indi cator icon FIG 4A shows this program s general declara tions and FIGS 4B and 4C show the actual program The software module ICON CTRL DLL receives passed param eters as Word values Because the language in which this program is written Visual Basic passes parameters by r
7. so that the input voltage will never be less than the required minimum level This allows successful radio modem transmissions throughout the dis charge curve of the battery to compensate for the battery voltage drop as is typical of batteries during their discharge 10 15 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 4 cycles This feature is implemented in one embodiment with no added circuitry since the packet radio protocol requires that the output power be adjustable in discrete steps anyway to limit the range of received signal strength at the base station receiver This is an improvement over the prior art of adjusting the output power only after the minimum voltage limit has already been reached The present approach pro longs battery usefulness for both rechargeable and non rechargeable batteries It is to be understood that the present improvements are applicable to a range of portable computing devices includ ing those with only limited computing capabilities BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS FIG 1 shows a block diagram of an exemplary portable computing device in accordance with the present invention FIGS 2A 2B 2C and 2D show power control status registers in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention FIG 3 shows system operating states in accordance with the present invention FIGS 4A 4B and 4C show a computer program for control of a status display in accordance with the present inv
8. with certain peripheral subsystems for example the display pen and keyboard powered off so a the computing device can resume and operate unat tended and the application program thus invoked can re suspend the computing device when it has com pleted execution b the unattended operation of the computing device will not be interrupted by unintentional user intervention e g the pen or keyboard c power consumption is minimized during unattended operation because several of the subsystems are pow ered down 5 Further a separate LCD status display is powered up even while the computing device is suspended for notifying the user both of the current power management state of the computing device including background mode and of conditions determined by an application program such as an urgent message has been received In another feature a power control circuit is provided for the transmitter portion of the radio wireless modem in order to maintain over the entire discharge curve of the battery a minimum required level of input voltage to the radio transmitter power amplifier This power control circuit measures the battery voltage prior to the start of transmis sion and predicts what the input voltage to the power amplifier will be when transmission starts This prediction is based on a known relationship between power amplifier input voltage input current and output power level The output power level is then set
9. LW LINX dV HIMOd dWV HMd 1 JONVISISIH UNDHA JOVLIOA Adaliva AdaLiva 901 Ng US 6 311 282 B1 1 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR COMPUTING DEVICE WITH STATUS DISPLAY This application is a division of application Ser No 08 607 506 filed Feb 27 1996 now abandoned BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1 Field of the Invention This invention relates to computers and especially to a portable battery powered computer which includes commu nication features such as a wireless modem and paging receiver 2 Description of the Prior Art Portable computers are well known as are personal communicators of the type exemplified by the Motorola Envoy Such portable computing devices are invariably battery powered Since presently available batteries have very limited storage capabilities it is important that such portable computing devices both computers and communicators limit their power draw Therefore there is known a wide range of techniques for conserving power in such battery powered devices These power conservation methods include shutting down portions various subsystems of the computer when not in use as well as putting the computer CPU the main processor to sleep when its capabilities are not being used Many portable computers have a main microprocessor of the type commercially available from Intel and other sup pliers called generically the 486 type This microproces sor and s
10. Red MuxButton 1 value True set IR button to true Sr eon value True set 9 Pin button to true n InBox 0 value True SIC Direction DIRECTION_OFF initialize in out box to off UrgStatus 0 value True SIC Urgent URGENT_OFF initialize display off End Sub Sub InBox Click Index As Integer If Index 0 Then SIC Direction DIRECTION OFF status icon off if Index 1 Then SIC Direction DIRECTION IN in arrow on If Index 2 Then SIC Direction DIRECTION OUT out arrow on If Index 3 Then SIC Direction DIRECTION BOX box on If Index 4 Then SIC Direction DIRECTION IN BOX in box on If Index 5 Then SIC Direction DIRECTION OUT BOX out box on If Index 6 Then SIC Direction DIRECTION IN OUT BOX in out box End Sub Sub MuxButton Click Index As Integer If Index 0 Then SetMux9Pin Set the UART to 9 Pin External End If If index 1 Then SetMuxIR Set the UART to InfraRed End If End Sub Sub UrgStatus_Click Index As Integer FIG 4B If Index 2 Then SIC_Urgent URGENT_BLINK blink urgent icon If Index 0 Then SIC Urgent URGENT OFF urgent icon off If Index 1 Then SIC_Urgent URGENT_ON urgent icon on End Sub FIG 4C US 6 311 282 B1 Sheet 6 of 6 Oct 30 2001 U S Patent a S Dis LINDYID ONIYNSVAW HIMOd ONILLAS dWv DAJI vota JONaUauaU 131 HATIOHLNOD INO H3MOd OYDIN VNN31NV HILNdNOD NOHA PS We INIHHNO 39V11OA LONI W
11. US006311282B1 a United States Patent 10 Patent No US 6 311 282 B1 Nelson et al 45 Date of Patent Oct 30 2001 54 METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR 5 596 628 1 1997 Klein 379 93 11 COMPUTING DEVICE WITH STATUS 5 627 882 5 1997 Chien et al 455 464 DISPLAY 5 629 715 5 1997 Zenda 345 3 5 841 431 11 1998 Simmers 345 211 Phili 5 867 140 2 1999 Rader wwe 345 98 75 Inventors Tamma rene oo B Jaeger 5 881 299 os Nomutaet AL aza ua Rs s t OTHER PUBLICATIONS 73 Assignee Fujitsu Personal Systems Inc Santa Clara CA US Intel Pentium Processor User s Manual Volume 1 Pen tium Processor Data Book Chapter 14 pp 14 1 and Notice This patent issued on a continued pros 14 2 1993 ecution application filed under 37 CFR eke a 1 53 d and is subject to the twenty year cited by examiner patent term provisions of 35 U S C Primary Examiner Ayaz R Sheikh 154 a 2 Assistant Examiner Sumati Lefkowitz Subject to any disclaimer the term of this h Atiorney Agent z Pin ekiewen Moral acPherson LLP Norman R Klivans patent is extended or adjusted under 35 U S C 154 b by 0 days 57 ABSTRACT 21 Appl No 09 201 349 A portable computing device e g a notebook type com
12. abled Resume Time On Pager SMI Background Suspend Resume button pressed O eem om Pager SMI Suspend pager SMI rejected Suspend Resume button pressed mn mmm ow Ring Wait Resume on Pager SMI enabled Modem Ring Po MA Suspend Resume button pressed om mmm e Pager SMI Suspend pager SMI rejected FIG 3 Suspend Resume on Pager SMI disabled Ring Wait Resume on Pager SMI disabled U S Patent Oct 30 2001 Sheet 4 of 6 US 6 311 282 B1 external subroutine for setting URGENT display Const URGENT_OFF 0 Const URGENT_ON 1 Const URGENT_BLINK 2 Declare Sub SIC_Urgent Lib c stat_Icd iconctrl dll ByVal wStatus As Integer external subroutine for setting in out box display Const DIRECTION_OFF 0 OFF Const DIRECTION IN 1 IN ARROW ONLY Const DIRECTION OUT 2 OUT ARROW ONLY Const DIRECTION_BOX 4 BOX ONLY Const DIRECTION_IN_BOX 5 IN BOX Const DIRECTION_OUT_BOX 6 OUT BOX Const DIRECTION IN OUT BOX 7 IN OUT BOX Declare Sub SIC Direction Lib c stat_Icd iconctrl ddl ByVal wStatus As Integer functions for MUXing serial port Declare Function GetMuxStat Lib c stat_Icd iconctrl dll As Integer Declare Sub SetMuxIR Lib c stat_Icd iconctrl dll Declare Sub SetMux9Pin Lib c stat_icd iconctrl dll FIG 4A U S Patent Oct 30 2001 Sheet 5 of 6 US 6 311 282 B1 Sub Form Load If GetMuxStat 1 Then if UART MUX is now Infra
13. ate 7 A computing device having a main processor and a power management circuit a main display and a status display coupled to the main processor and further compris ing 10 15 14 means for operating the computing device in a suspend state wherein the power management circuit and at least a portion of the status display are powered and the main processor and the main display are off means for receiving a message transmitted to the com puting device from an external source means for powering up the main processor in response to receipt of the message and after the main processor is powered up indicating on the status display a reception of the message at the computing device and wherein a message waiting indicator is displayed during the suspend state of the computing device
14. eference the ByVal keyword is required in the declara tion in FIG 4B to pass the correct parameters Similarly the value As Integer ensures that the value passed is a 16 bit Word value Upon loading this program both status display support services are initialized to Off to avoid synchronization problems The current assignment of the UART 84 is determined and the appropriate option button set to true to display that assignment US 6 311 282 B1 11 Another feature in accordance with the present invention as described above is control of the output power of the RF modem 82 in response to diminished battery voltage A block diagram of a circuit to accomplish this is shown in FIG 5 The circuit of FIG 5 shows relevant portions of RF modem 82 the remaining portions are conventional The data from super I O chip 54 to be transmitted is coupled to power amplifier 102 which in turn has its output terminal coupled to radio antenna 104 Battery 106 the battery of the device shown in FIG 1 has a conventional variable output battery voltage and is coupled through circuit resistance 108 to supply drive current to power amplifier 102 thereby providing a power amplifier input voltage which is measured and converted by analog to digital converter 110 the digital output terminal of which is connected to an input terminal of microccontroller 112 This microccontroller is part of block 82 of FIG 1 Microcontroller 112
15. ention FIG 5 shows a block diagram of a circuit for reducing radio transmitter power output in response to a battery supply voltage drop DETAILED DESCRIPTION FIG 1 shows the block diagram of a computing device in accordance with the present invention which includes the features and elements of a conventional notebook portable computer combined with communications capabilities including a pager receiver and a radio modem This diagram is exemplary and not limiting of a system in which the present improvements may be incorporated This particular embodiment is a full functioned Intel 486 type DX2 50 notebook computer including a Mobitex radio frequency modem and a POCSAG paging receiver With reference to FIG 1 the CPU 10 main microprocessor is an Intel type 486 processor e g the P23S or the P24S CPU 10 is connected to a conventional address data and control bus 22 to which is also connected a video memory VRAM 14 via conventional VGA controller 16 e g a WD90C24 Western Digital Connected to VGA controller 16 is the LCD which is the main computer display having the pixel dimensions as shown and the secondary display 20 connected by a D s connector There is also provision not shown for connec tion of a cathode ray tube CRT Also connected to the bus 22 is a conventional system peripheral controller 24 e g the Western Digital WD7625LV a system controller 26 e g the Western Digital WD8110LV 4 megabytes of dynamic
16. face for example sending warning messages to application programs before allowing the system to suspend e g after a period of inactivity Microsoft has extended this concept to their Windows Operating System message servicing architecture by providing Windows APM drivers POWER DRV and VPOWERD 386 In accordance with the present invention the Phoenix PPMI is extended adding services to enable disable Back ground Mode and the ability for an application program to request that the system suspend Suspend is usually requested by the BIOS To allow applications to access these extensions in the MS Window environment a Win dows driver is provided A feature of APM is that except in the case of a low low battery crisis suspend device drivers and application programs are notified of a suspend request and may reject if they are busy If some applications accept the suspend request and others reject it this may lead to synchronization problems since the system has not suspended but some drivers or applications may think they were suspended since they did not reject the suspend request In a first feature in accordance with the present invention operation of this computing device is allowed to resume from a suspend state upon receipt of a paging message That is under program control the computing device resumes operation of the main processor 10 from a suspend state upon receipt of a paging message which has been transmit
17. he user without resuming full operation Thus one operating mode of the computing device is the background state which means that the CPU operates at full clock speed for unattended operation In order to reduce power draw various peripherals such as the main display and keyboard are turned off powered down in the back ground state With the computing device thus operating in background state upon receipt of for instance a paging message by the paging receiver the computing device can automatically turn on its other peripherals for instance the radio modem to receive data without user intervention In summary this approach allows 1 The entire computing device to be suspended into a very low power consumption mode except for the inte grated paging receiver which remains powered sufficiently to receive paging messages 2 Upon receipt of a message sent via a conventional wireless paging service the computing device can be optionally resumed by the integrated paging receiver to full power on operational state that is it does not require rebooting the operating system nor reloading application programs 3 Application programs can be launched to perform various tasks such as powering on the RF modem and invoking data transfer sessions optionally depending on the contents of the paging message received while the computing device was suspended 4 Additionally there is a background power on state which operates
18. hich also connects to the bus 22A The next element is a PCMCIA controller 56 which is e g the Cirrus Logic CL PD6720 connecting also to bus 22A and connecting to PCMCIA cards e g two such cards via a connector 70 Also shown are connectors 72 and 74 con necting to respectively a parallel port and floppy disk drive port of the super I O 54 chip In the lower left hand portion of FIG 1 connector 76 connects the super I O chip 54 to the radio and also wired modem 82 RF modem 82 may be for instance a cellular telephone modem or other type of well known radio based modem such as MOBITEX ARDIS or CDPD etc Power supply unit and power supply microcon troller unit 96 include the actual power supply and the associated microcontroller which are connected for control purposes to the power management portion 50 of the ASIC 38 and to system peripheral controller 24 In the lower right hand portion of FIG 1 is a Data bus to which is connected the keyboard controller 88 which is connected to a keyboard 94 via a connector 94 and also a BIOS basic input output system flash memory 90 for system memory purposes While in this case the RF modem 82 is a Mobitex type modem this is not limiting but is illustrative Similarly in this case the pager 84 is a POCSAG type paging receiver which provides alphanumeric information of a type more extensive than a mere telephone number This is well known and of a commercially available type and again is not li
19. issued the BIOS immediately initiates the suspend procedure This request is valid when the computing device is in the on state or in the background state as described below Even if background state operation is enabled the computing device goes into the suspend procedure Note however that the computing device does not neces sarily actually suspend operation if an APM software driver is connected Rather a suspend request notification message is sent to all APM aware drivers software modules and to application programs which may reject the suspend request if they are busy and do not want to suspend operation Thus after completion of the desired task the computing device under control of the application program returns to the suspend state i e is asleep awaiting the next need to resume operation The actual return to the suspend state is performed by the BIOS and the suspend feature of the main processor Thus the availability of the background state operation supports the resume on pager feature Again this feature is enabled or disabled depending on a BIOS parameter The computing device is intended to send and receive various data without user intervention as described above Thus it is possible that the user may not even notice that the commu nication module pager 84 RF modem 82 is in operation 10 15 20 25 30 40 45 50 55 60 65 8 and may try suspend system operation during communica
20. l paging message can activate the computing device for instance to allow the radio modem to be turned on in response to the paging message and to receive information which is then stored in the computing device Thus the computing device operates at all times as a full fledged communicator without excessive battery drain In one embodiment the computing device is maintained in a suspend state and upon receipt of the paging message a system management interrupt SMI is generated by the pager interface and directed to the main microprocessor CPU to resume operation of the CPU This can also result in turning on for instance of the radio modem to receive a message That is to say depending upon the contents of the paging message various applications programs to be executed by the CPU can be launched automatically Thus power management state of the computer is controlled remotely by messages transmitted to the pager In another feature under application program control the computing device can set the state of a secondary status display typically a small auxiliary liquid crystal display LCD to provide an urgent message waiting indicator US 6 311 282 B1 3 This takes place even though the computing device is operating in a background state with the main display powered down Thus the reception of messages for instance via the pager or radio modem during unattended and or background state operation can be visually indicated to t
21. miting but is illustrative It is to be understood that each of the various elements shown in FIG 1 is of commercially available type except as described hereinafter Moreover the features described hereinafter are applicable to other com puting devices the device of FIG 1 is illustrative of one application As a matter of technical background APM Advanced Power Management is a general set of interfaces defined by Microsoft and Intel see ADVANCED POWER MANAGE MENT BIOS Interface Specification Rev 1 1 SEP 93 Intel Part Number 241704 001 These interfaces include a BIOS interface which has been implemented with extensions by Phoenix Technologies in their BIOS Basic Input Output System product as the Phoenix Power Management Inter face PPMI Additionally Microsoft provides with its MS DOS Operating System a power management device driver POWER EXE which optionally uses the BIOS services to allow MS DOS and the end user limited control of system s power management mode the modes being Off Standard amp Advanced Standard PM Power Management mode does not rely on BIOS services and has very limited functionality i e MS DOS can put the processor into a lower power mode if the operating system and application software are idling 10 15 20 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 6 APM utilizes more complete cooperation between the oper ating system application programs and the BIOS APM PPMI inter
22. ning in the background state must not change the auto suspend timer through the PPMI or SETUP modules An application pro gram running in the background state must not change the display timeout through PPMI or SETUP Once the back ground state operation has been enabled it stays enabled until explicitly disabled or until a PPMI suspend request is issued Thus in the background state the computing device can under application program control operate with the display 18 its associated backlight and the keyboard 88 off but with the main processor 10 running at full clock speed for unattended operation Another feature in accordance with the present invention supports the background state and unattended operation of the computing device That is the computing device can under application program control set the state of the status LCD 20 a small LCD independent of the main screen 18 to provide a message in out icon and an urgent message waiting indicator Thus the reception of messages during unattended and or background state operation is communi cated to the user without resuming operation of the com puting device This is because the status LCD 20 is in operation even when the main processor 10 is in the suspend state That is to say this information displayed by the LCD 20 is provided from the power management microccontrol ler 96 and ASIC 44 rather than from the main processor 10 FIGS 2A 2B 2C and 2D show various located
23. ome others such as the Intel PENTIUM processors includes a suspend resume feature and system management mode for power management A special signal generated for instance by a set of key strokes or pushing a special button on the computer or in some cases closing the top of the computer and thereby actuating a switch is sent to the microprocessor This command is called the system management interrupt SMI and is documented in the Intel document Pentium Processor User s Manual Vol 1 1993 pp 14 1 to 14 2 The microprocessor upon receiving the SMI when the microprocessor is operating executes SMI code in its SM system management mode saves its current register state of operation to SRAM memory and then enters a suspend sleep state in which it is not quite off but draws very little power and hence is for all practical purposes not operating except for checking for a subsequent SMI In response to subsequent receipt of an SMI the micro processor resumes operation executes its RSM instruction with the same state that was previously saved and does so very quickly Hence the system management interrupt allows toggling between the suspend and resume states allowing power conservation without significantly impeding use of the computer i e there is no need to reboot and reload application programs In some computers the system management interrupt is also generated by a timer when for instance there has been no keyboard in
24. particular paging message may indicate to turn on the RF modem 82 for receipt of a longer message which is automatically downloaded into the com puting device from a remote source via the RF modem 82 This occurs without user intervention and generally without the user even being aware of this happening For instance the computing device could be in the user s briefcase or otherwise left unattended while these operations are occur ring Thus the System Management Interrupt causes the main processor to return to full normal operation processing speed and execute special system management resume code in the BIOS which in turn restores the state of the comput ing device to what it was at the instant before the suspend request SMI was generated Control is then returned to the operating system e g a combination of MS DOS and Win dows Windows COMM driver will service a pending regular not system management interrupt from the paging receiver and retrieve the received paging message which is then passed onto a paging application program This paging application program can invoke another application program depending on the contents of the paging message Upon completion and receipt of the message for instance via the RF modem 82 i e completion of execution of the application program the main processor 10 returns to the suspend state upon receipt of a suspend request from the application program When the suspend request is
25. provides a digital power out level reference value which is converted to an analog signal by digital to analog converter 116 to drive the positive terminal of error amplifier 120 the inverting terminal of which is connected by a feedback loop to the antennal04 by power measuring circuit 124 Error amplifier 120 provides a power level setting to the control gain terminal of power amplifier 102 It is characteristic of the power amplifier 102 used in this computing device that as the power amplifier input voltage decreases the power amplifier current increases in an attempt to maintain a constant Power Out as established by the Power Level Setting input to the power amplifier 102 The power amplifier 102 will not operate properly below a voltage of e g 5 4 volts so it is necessary to ensure that this minimum input voltage is exceeded or maintained as the battery 106 discharges during transmitter operation Since the relationship between power amplifier current and Power Out is known and predictable the circuit shown in FIG 5 maintains the required minimum power amplifier input voltage by adjusting the power amplifier power level setting This allows operation of the power amplifier 102 over the full discharge cycle of the battery 108 although at reduced output power levels When the power amplifier 102 is not transmitting then the power amplifier input voltage is equal to the battery voltage When the power amplifier 102 is tran
26. put for a particular amount of time the SMI is generated putting the computer into the suspend state until additional keyboard activity occurs Another feature available in some portable computers is the so called instant on feature This is somewhat different from the suspend state in that the computer is maintained in a low power standby state with some of the computer subsystems e g the screen powered down Any of the usual processor interrupts then bring the entire computer back to tn 10 15 20 25 40 50 55 60 65 2 full operation This standby state typically draws more power than does the suspend state Thus there is a continuum of exemplary computer states involving increasing amounts of power consumption The first state is when the computer is actually off and drawing no power except perhaps for time purposes or to maintain certain data in memory the next state is the suspend state supported by the SMI the next state is the standby state which corresponds to the instant on feature and the last state is the full on state in which all computer subsystems are fully operational However neither the instant on feature nor the manually generated SMI resulting in the suspend state are suitable for a portable computer which also includes communication features Such communication features while generally not part of portable computers have been available in commu nicators These communicators t
27. puter also includes communications features including 22 Filed Nov 30 1998 a pager receiver and a radio frequency modem which are supported by allowing the device under application pro Related U S Application Data gram control to resume operation from a suspend sleep state upon receipt of a paging message Additionally 62 Division of application No 08 607 506 filed on Feb 27 depending upon the contents of the paging message various 1996 now abandoned application programs can be automatically launched in the 51 Int Cl 2 2822 eee te G06F 1 32 main processor Under application program control the G2 E Epp asna 713 324 713 323 345 212 device can operate in a background state with for instance 58 Field of Search 713 320 324 the main pare its backlight and the keyboard powered 345 211 212 down but with the main processor running at full speed for unattended operation Under application program control in 56 References Cited normal or background mode the device can request that the unit suspend operation without user intervention for battery U S PATENT DOCUMENTS power savings during unattended operations Under appli 4 656 318 4 1987 Noyes a 379 102 04 Cation program control the device can set the state of a 5 041 964 8 1991 Cole et al metas 713 322 status message indicating a message pending or a urgent 5 043 721 8 1991 May 340 825 44 message waiting Thus reception of messages d
28. smitting however the power amplifier input voltage is lower than the battery voltage due to the voltage drop across the circuit resistance 108 The microccontroller 112 samples the input voltage before the power amplifier 102 begins transmitting and then adjusts the power out level reference to a value which ensures that the battery voltage minus the voltage drop across the circuit resistance 108 caused by the power ampli fier current will provide not less than the minimum required e g 5 4 volts input voltage to the power amplifier 102 The advantage of this approach is that compensation for variations in battery voltage is accomplished without adding additional circuitry since the packet radio network protocol requires that the transmitter power be adjusted in any case to compensate for changes in receiver signal strength Exem plary power level settings controlled by a conventional program resident in microccontroller 112 are shown in the following table 10 15 20 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 12 Battery Battery Power Power Amp Power Amp Charge Lvl Voltage Output Input Volt Current Full 7 4 Volts 3 0 Watts 7 0 Volts 1 5 Amps 90 Tas 3 0 6 8 1 6 75 7 0 2 9 6 55 1 7 60 6 75 2 5 6 1 1 8 45 6 35 2 S T 1 9 30 6 0 1 7 5 4 1 8 15 5 85 1 4 5 4 1 4 0 ST 1 2 5 4 1 2 This disclosure is illustrative and not limiting further modifications will be apparent in light of this disclosure and are intended to fall
29. stop operation 1 none Bit 1 LB Low Battery This bit also shows the status ot main battery 0 Low battery need to pay attention 1 none FIG 3 shows in a tabular form a state diagram indicat ing state transitions where the background state operation is enabled The Suspend Resume button is a user controlled button on the computing device allowing the user to toggle between these two states Ring Wait is the state of await ing a Modem Ring This state diagram makes clear the transitions between the states of 1 being on fully powered up state 2 the background operation state 3 the susp end state and 4 the ring wait state The state transitions are determined by the BIOS While the corresponding BIOS code is not shown here it is readily written by one of ordinary skill in the art in light of this disclosure As described above one feature which supports the background and suspend states is the provision of the message in out and the urgent message waiting via the status display 20 The corresponding urgent status icon can have any one of three values i e off on or blink The in out message box status i con can have any one of the values off in arrow only on out arrow only on message box only on in arrow in box on out arrow in box on and in and out and in box on Thus the status display 20 shows these icons even when the computing device itself is in the suspended state Hence an application program
30. tions However the BIOS does not allow the main processor 10 to enter the suspend state until a particular communica tion is completed and the communication module is idle Background state is the same as the fully on state with the exceptions that 1 The main display 18 and its associated back light not shown are turned off both to conserve power and to make the computing device appear to the user as if its operation is suspended 2 The auto suspend feature is disabled because some application programs may require more time than the auto suspend timer allows The auto suspend timer normally puts the computing device into the suspend state if a particular time as measured by the timer elapses without any activity 3 The tablet 64 and its associated pen and the keyboard 68 input are ignored to prevent accidental user input Certain operations are prohibited in the background state An application program must not disable power manage ment while the computing device is in the background state If power management is disabled while the computing device is in the background state the computing device cannot be returned to the on state by pressing the suspend resume button or by executing keystrokes An application program running in the background state must not issue a suspend request through the APM driver Instead the appli cation program must use the BIOS PPMI suspend request as described below An application program run
31. uring unat 5 167 024 11 1992 Smith et al 713 322 tended and or background state operation is communicated 5 189 632 2 1993 Paajanen et al 708 109 to the user without resuming full operation Additionally in 5 337 044 8 1994 Folger et al 340 825 44 response to a drop in output voltage from the battery which 5 444 869 8 1995 Stricklin et al a 455 575 is the system power supply transmission power of the RF 5 446 904 8 1995 Belt et al e 713 323 modem is reduced thereby allowing RF modem transmis o x Tie Seance rey sions over the entire battery discharge curve 5 530 879 6 1996 Crump et al cs 713 323 5 537 650 7 1996 West et al 713 324 7 Claims 6 Drawing Sheets mm atl e ales a s s 5 e Ha T l s a E Ms JE Er HE tL 2 f NOAS el Super tO PORCIA 5 E EN T F E rad ss e lp Es 4 ren erat o z IRS o __ rl na U S Patent Oct 30 2001 Sheet 1 of 6 US 6 311 282 B1 10 14 16 18 CPU VGA LCD P238 33MHz VRAM Controller 20 640x480 P24S 50MHz 256Kx16b Intel Dsub15 CRT Address ii Data ee ies 2 29 Control E Se RS TE Y Power System Cont Mana Peripheral Controller ge WD7625LV WD8110LV WesternDigital WesternDigital Address Data asa Control 1 gt gt gt 4 44 46 48 38 50 een FE 5 NOAH au Super I O WD8120LV Western Digital CL PD6720 Cirrus Logic
32. us display are powered up and the main processor and the main display are off means for receiving a message transmitted to the com puting device from an external source and means for powering up the main processor in response to receipt of the message and after the main processor is powered up indicating on the status display a reception of the message at the computing device 4 The computing device of claim 3 further comprising means for not powering up the main display when the main processor is powered up 5 A method of operating a computing device having a main processor a power management circuit a main display and a status display comprising operating the computing device in a suspend state wherein the power management circuit and at least a portion of the status display are powered up and the main pro cessor and main display are off US 6 311 282 B1 13 transmitting a message to the computing device from an external source resuming normal operation of the main processor in response to receipt of the message indicating on the status display a reception of the message at the computing device after the step of resuming the normal operation of the main processor and continuing to display a message waiting indicator during the suspend state of the computing device 6 The method of claim 5 furthercomprising not powering up the main display when the main processor resumes normal operation from the suspend st
33. within the scope of the appended claims Also it is to be understood that the various features described herein may in at least some cases be independent of one another and it is contemplated that a computing device may include only some of these features We claim 1 A method of operating a computing device having a main processor a power management circuit a main display and a status display which is a liquid crystal display comprising the steps of operating the computing device in a suspend state wherein the power management circuit and at least a portion of the status display are powered up and the main pro cessor and main display are off transmitting a message to the computing device from an external source resuming normal operation of the main processor in response to receipt of the message and indicating on the status display a reception of the message at the computing device after the step of resuming the normal operation of the main processor 2 The method of claim 1 further comprising the step of not powering up the main display when the main processor resumes normal operation 3 A computing device having a main processor and a power management circuit a main display and a status display which is a liquid crystal display coupled to the main processor and further comprising means for operating the computing device in a suspend state wherein the power management circuit and at least a portion of the stat
34. yboard 88 are not powered up Note that in the background state the auto suspend feature of main processor 10 is not operative Therefore an appli cation program running on main processor 10 in the back ground state must suspend operation of the main processor 10 using a suspend request as described below to avoid the synchronization problems alluded to above It is therefore possible for the PCMCIA cards attached for instance to connector 70 to be off while the main processor 10 remains operating This is because APM aware application programs can accept or reject the suspend US 6 311 282 B1 7 request notification but other application programs such as the PCMCIA card manager may not be aware of such rejection Once the main processor 10 is in its background state i e operating at normal clock speed any desired application program can be automatically launched in response to a particular paging message Thus the paging message may resume execution of an application program s by the main processor upon the receipt of the paging message The resumed application program s are those which were active at the time of the previously executed suspend request The contents of the paging message may be scanned by one of the reactivated application programs after operation of the main processor has been resumed and depending on the message contents another application program s launched without user inter vention For instance a
35. ypically have included only modest computing capabilities but also include for instance a conventional wired modem for connection to telephone lines a wireless modem for either facsimile packet data and or telephone communications and a pager receiver an integrated pager Since a purpose of such communicators is to be able to receive messages from an external source at all times typically via the pager or the wireless modem the commu nicator must be at least partly powered up at all times Thus it is maintained in a low power state not off even when the user is not actively using it in order to receive messages by paging or radio modem transmission This relatively low power state in fact requires a relatively high power drain because significant portions of the communicator must be on at all times in order to be able to receive the messages Hence these communicators suffer from needing frequent battery changes and or recharges SUMMARY In accordance with the present invention several improvements have been made in a combination portable computer communicator computing device which in one embodiment is a portable computer with an integrated paging receiver and RF and or wired modem These improvements increase battery life by reducing current drain while enabling use of the communications feature at all times The paging receiver is operatively connected to or integrated into the computing device itself so that a conven tiona
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