Patent ID: 8022854
Filing Date: 2011-09-20
Classification: H03M

Abstract:
1. An error suppression circuit apparatus for generating an output signal having an output code from an input signal having a thermometer code representation, the error suppression circuit apparatus comprising: a clustering circuit block configured to accept input code bits of the thermometer code representation of the input signal and to partition the input code bits into non-overlapping clusters, wherein each of the clusters comprises a portion of the input code bits; a control signal generation circuit block configured to generate a control signal for each of the clusters based on, at least in part, a logical OR operation over all bits in a corresponding one of the clusters; a cluster selection circuit block configured to determine a transition cluster for the input code bits based on, at least in part, the control signals, the transition cluster comprising a 1/0 transition in the input code bits, the cluster selection circuit block configured to determine one or more bits of the output code based on, at least in part, an identity of the transition cluster; and an encoding circuit block configured to determine the remaining bits of the output code based on, at least in part, an input code bit pattern in the transition cluster, the remaining bits having lower significant bit positions in the output code than the one or more bits, wherein the number of bits in the output code is less than the number of bits in the input code bits, and the total number of bits in the clusters is the same as the number of bits in the input code bits, wherein the control signal generation circuit block and the encoding circuit block are configured to operate without performing an XOR operation.