Patent ID: 7821235

Claim:
A method for measuring a temperature of an electronic device comprising a chargeable battery and a DRAM having an embedded temperature sensing device, the method comprising: measuring an ambient temperature with the temperature sensing device; measuring the temperature of the battery with the temperature sensing device; performing at least one asynchronous read cycle to a predetermined memory address of the memory circuit; performing at least one asynchronous write cycle comprising a data pattern that indicates an internal register of the temperature sensing circuit; reading a temperature indication off of a data bus in the memory circuit; wherein the temperature indication is generated by a temperature variant oscillator that generates a variable rate signal having a frequency that varies in response to a temperature of the memory device, a temperature invariant oscillator that generates a fixed rate signal indicating a sense cycle, and a counter that generates the temperature indication as an n-bit count value in response to the variable rate signal and the fixed rate signal; correcting the measured battery temperature in response to the ambient temperature to produce a corrected battery temperature; and when the corrected battery temperature indicates a temperature acceleration that is greater than a predetermined threshold, reducing a charging current to the battery.