An electrostatic chuck system includes a first heater, a second heater, a chiller, and a controller. The first heater includes a plurality of resistors connected to a plurality of row wiring lines and a plurality of column wiring lines in a matrix form. The second heater includes a heater electrode in a concentric shape or a spiral shape. The chiller chills the first heater or the second heater. The controller controls the first heater, the second heater, and the chiller. The controller switches the row wiring lines and the column wiring lines of the first heater in a time-division manner to provide a power pulse to heat the resistors and a detect pulse to monitor a real-time resistance value or a real-time temperature of each of resistors connected to selected row wiring lines.

A hob apparatus includes at least one heating element adapted to heat a cooking vessel. The at least one heating element is supported by at least one space dividing element in an installation position. A fixing unit embodied at least in part as a locking unit attaches the at least one heating element and the at least one space dividing element to each other.

A thermal system includes a plurality of resistor circuits that define a number of resistor circuits R.sub.n. The thermal system also has a plurality of nodes that connect the plurality of resistor circuits and define a number of nodes N.sub.n. A plurality of power wires are connected to each of the plurality of nodes, and the plurality of power wires define a number of power wires P.sub.n. A plurality of signal wires connect to each of the plurality of nodes to sense the temperature of each of the resistor circuits, and the plurality of signal wires define a number of signal wires S.sub.n. The number of power wires P.sub.n and the number of signal wires S.sub.n is equal to the number of nodes N.sub.n, and the number of resistor circuits R.sub.n is greater than or equal to the number of nodes N.sub.n.

An induction device includes an induction unit including a sensor unit which is arranged above the induction unit in a mounted position and includes a plurality of temperature sensor elements arranged in a distributed manner and configured to detect a sensor parameter in the form of a temperature parameter of a unit. A control unit is provided to analyze the sensor parameter.

A thermal system includes a base member, a two-phase fluid, a tuning heater, and a chuck. The base member includes at least one fluid passageway. The two-phase fluid is disposed within the fluid passageway. A pressure of the two-phase fluid is controlled such that the two-phase fluid provides at least one of heating and cooling to the base member. The tuning heater is secured to the base member. The chuck is secured to the tuning heater opposite to the base member. The tuning heater includes a plurality of zones to fine tune a heat distribution provided by the base member to the chuck.

An induction heating cooker includes a top plate on which an object to be heated is placed, a plurality of heating coils disposed adjacent to one another below the top plate to generate inductive magnetic fields to heat the object to be heated, a plurality of temperature detectors operable to detect a temperature of the object to be heated; and a controller operable to control operating states of the heating coils based on detection results of the temperature detector, wherein the plurality of temperature detectors are disposed widely below the top plate, and the number of the temperature detectors is less than the number of the heating coils.

The present invention relates to an induction hob with a cooking surface (10) and a number of induction coils (12; 16, 18) within said cooking surface (10). The induction coils (12; 16, 18) are arranged on the cooking surface (10) according to predetermined scheme, so that at least two induction coils (12; 16, 18) can be covered by a standard cooking vessel (14). Each induction coil (12; 16, 18) is connected to at least one induction generator being switched or switchable between a high power and a low power. Each induction generator is separately controllable, so that the induction coils (12; 16, 18) are switched or switchable between the high power and the low power. At least one control unit is provided for controlling the individual induction coils (12; 16, 18) according to a predetermined time pattern. Further, the present invention relates to a corresponding method for controlling the induction hob.

A stovetop device includes a heating area adapted to heat cookware placed thereon and/or food to be cooked thereon, and a control unit configured to operate at least one subarea of the heating area in at least one operating state as at least one target temperature burner and to assign different target temperatures to different positions of the at least one target temperature burner.

The invention discloses a hob (100) with free configurable heating array (115) and touchscreen control (130). A user may combine graphic representations (145) and (150) of a first and a second pot in order to combine a control operation of a first and a second heating zone (107, 112) associated to the respective pots. In this manner, plural heating zones can be combined by a single input, and visibility on the touchscreen control is improved by uniting both representations of the pots on the touchscreen control display. Combining/separating heating zones can be effected by the synchronous movement of two fingers uniting the two graphic representations of the pots on the touchscreen respectively diverging the two graphic representations of the pots on the touchscreen (130). A computer program product (500) allows to easily and freely configure the hob (100) and to perform maintenance and mass production.

An induction device includes an induction unit including a sensor unit, which is arranged above the induction unit in a mounted position and includes a plurality of presence sensor elements arranged in a distributed manner and configured to detect a sensor parameter in the form of a presence parameter of an object. A control unit is provided to analyze the sensor parameter.