Patent ID: 7937991
Filing Date: 2011-05-10
Classification: B82Y,G01Q

Abstract:
1. A method, comprising: receiving a signal from a cantilever part of an atomic force microscope into a digital circuit, where said digital circuit includes both a digital signal processor, and a field programmable gate array, each of said digital signal processor and said field programmable gate array carrying out digital operations on the signal from the cantilever part; at a first time, carrying out a first digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor, and carrying out at least a second digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the field programmable gate array; at a second time, reprogramming operations carried out by the field programmable gate array to create a reprogrammed field programmable gate array circuit and carrying out a changed digital operation on the signal from the cantilever part in the digital signal processor using the reprogrammed field programmable gate array, and based on one of said digital operations, sending at least a position correcting signal out from the digital circuit to the cantilever part.