Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Signal converting – shaping – or generating – Current driver
Patent
1998-11-04
2000-09-12
Le, Dinh T.
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Signal converting, shaping, or generating
Current driver
327437, 327319, 326 30, 326 82, H03K 301, H03K 190175
Patent
active
061183105
ABSTRACT:
The present invention is generally directed to a PVT compensated variable impedance output driver for driving a signal through a signal pad on a semiconductor device. In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, the output driver includes a plurality of p-channel field effect transistors (PFETs) electrically connected in parallel. A source node of each of the plurality of PFETs are electrically connected together, and a drain node of each of the plurality of PFETs are electrically connected together. The driver further includes a plurality of n-channel field effect transistors (NFETs) electrically connected in parallel. A source node of each of the plurality of NFETs are electrically connected together and a drain node of each of the plurality of NFETs are electrically connected together. Further, the drain nodes of the plurality of PFETs are electrically connected with the source nodes of each of the plurality of NFETs, and are further electrically coupled (preferably through an ESD resistor) to the signal pad. A first PFET of the plurality of PFETs has a gate node that is driven by an output of a pull-up predriver circuit and a first NFET of the plurality of NFETs has a gate node that is driven by an output of a pull-down predriver circuit. The remaining PFETs and NFETs, however, have gate nodes that are driven by signals from the pull-up and pull-down predeiver circuits, as controlled by calibration words generated by a control circuit. In accordance with yet another aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for controllably varying the output impedance of an output driver circuit that is configured to drive a signal through a signal pad on a semiconductor device.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4719369 (1988-01-01), Assano et al.
patent: 5134311 (1992-07-01), Biber et al.
patent: 5162672 (1992-11-01), McMahan et al.
patent: 5306965 (1994-04-01), Asprey
patent: 5581197 (1996-12-01), Motley et al.
patent: 5602494 (1997-02-01), Sundstrom
Agilent Technologies
Le Dinh T.
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