Patent ID: 8933712
Filing Date: 2015-01-13
Classification: G01R

Abstract:
1. A device for approximating a difference between two capacitive components, comprising: a first capacitive component and a second capacitive component; a capacitance approximation bank including a plurality of approximation capacitors; a capacitance adjustment module configured to connect one or more of the approximation capacitors in parallel with one of the first and second capacitive components; a memory location for storage of an indication of a first set of approximation capacitors that was previously connected in a preceding approximation test; a control module that identifies the smaller of the first and second capacitive components, that identifies the larger of the first and second capacitive components, that retrieves the indication of the first set of approximation capacitors and connects the one or more capacitors of the first set of capacitors to the smaller capacitive component, and computes a variation between the value of the larger capacitive component and the value of the smaller capacitive component connected to the first set of approximation capacitors, wherein the difference between the first and second capacitive components is determined to be equivalent to the value of the first set of approximation capacitors in response to the variation being less than or equal to a first predefined value.