Patent · US Expired

Control system for an electronic pastage meter having a programmable application specific intergrated circuit

US5552991A · kind A · utility

9Cited by
11References
3Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateDec 9, 1993
Grant dateSep 3, 1996
Priority date
Expiry dateDec 9, 2013

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG07B2017/0075
  • WIPO fieldControl
  • WIPO sectorInstruments

Abstract

The electronic postage meter includes a printing unit which is responsive to a plurality of motors for printing of a postage indicia in response to a control circuit. The control circuit is comprised of a programmable microprocessor in bus communication with an accounting medium having memory units for accounting for the postage printed by the printing unit responsive to the programming of the microprocessor. An integrated circuit includes an address decoding module for generating a unique combination of ASIC control signals in response to a respective address placed on the bus by the microprocessor. A timer register is responsive to ones of the control signals from the address decoding module to enable writing of the timer data into the timer registers by the microprocessor. The timer unit is responsive to the timer data for generating one of a plurality of timing signals in accordance with timer data. Also included are a plurality of non-volatile memory units. The non-volatile memory unit responsive to other ones of the control signals from the address decoding module to enable the non-volatile memory units for writing data into the non-volatile memory unit by the microprocessor.…

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.