Patent Document ID: 7686508
Application ID: 11584421
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for producing a temperature reading using a transistor (Q 1 ) including a base, an emitter and a collector, where the base is connected to the collector, and a current path is between the emitter and the collector, the method comprising: (a) providing a first amount of current (I 1 ) and a second amount of current (I 2 ) to the current path of the transistor (Q 1 ), during different time slots of a time period, to thereby produce a first base-emitter voltage (Vbe 1 ) and a second base-emitter voltage (Vbe 2 ), where I 1 =I 2 *M, and M is a known constant; (b) digitizing analog signals indicative of magnitudes of Vbe 1 and Vbe 2 ; (c) digitally determining a difference between the magnitudes of Vbe 1 and Vbe 2 ; and (d) producing a digital temperature reading (DTR) based on the difference between the magnitudes of Vbe 1 and Vbe 2 , wherein step (e) comprises producing the DTR using the following equation: 
 DTR=K *Data/[ K *Data/(2 ^N )+1] where K is a constant, Data is an N-bit digital value indicative of the difference between the magnitude of Vbe 1 and the magnitude of Vbe 2 , and N is the number of bits of the Data, which is an integer ≧2.