Hitachi GST Assigned Patent

Hitachi Global Storage Technologies Netherlands B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands has been assigned a patent (8,209,366) developed by Jeffrey J. Dobbek, Morgan Hill, CA, and Kirk Hwang, Palo Alto, CA, for a "method, apparatus and program storage device that provides a shift process with saturation for digital signal processor operations."

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method, apparatus and program storage device that provides a shift process with saturation for digital signal processor operations are disclosed. An instruction is generated for shifting an operand to either maximum or the minimum value depending on the bit of data input when saturation occurs. A saturation detection circuit is combined with an arithmetic shifter and a final decision multiplexor. The final decision multiplexor receives the output from the arithmetic shifter and the saturated value from the saturation circuit. When saturation is detected by the saturation detection circuit, the final decision multiplexor selects the saturate minimum or the saturate maximum depending on whether the MSB of the data in equals one or zero, respectively."

The patent application was filed on Feb. 28, 2005 (11/068,206).