Electronic circuit element with field-effect transistor operatio

Details Electronic circuit element with field-effect transistor operatio Electronic circuit element with field-effect transistor operatio

1987-04-06

1989-04-18

Miller, Stanley D.

Electrical transmission or interconnection systems

Personnel safety or limit control features

Interlock

307571, 307573, 307575, 307576, 307584, 307585, 307450, 307451, 365182, H03K 3353, H03K 17687, H03K 19094, G11C 1134

Patent

active

048230251

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention relates to a circuit element with field-effect transistor operation, comprising a source and a drain terminal which, with the interposition of a load, are to be connected to the poles of a current source, and a gate terminal to be connected to a control signal source.
The invention provides an element of this kind which is characterised by having such characteristics that the source terminal is to be connected, in the case of an N-type element, to the positive, and in the case of a P-type element to the negative current source pole, which element is non-conducting when the gate terminal is at the voltage of the pole connected to the drain terminal.
Such a circuit element can be used, on the basis of its characteristics, be used in a particularly favourable way for various applications which, up till now, could only be realised by means of larger numbers of transistors.
A first application is as a memory element which, according to the invention, is characterised in that for use as a memory element the drain terminal is connected with the current source pole in question by means of a load resistor, and furthermore, with the control terminal by means of a feed-back resistor, this in such a manner that the voltage fed-back towards the input is always equal to the control voltage which, then, can be removed.
The expressions N- and P-type elements are used here in anology with n- and p-type field-effect transistors, since the voltages between the control and source electrodes have the same polarities in the corresponding cases.
Such a memory element has a particular advantage that by means of feeding back the voltage towards the input the condition is maintained as long as the supply voltage is present, so that an input signal with a short duration is sufficient. Therefore such an element needs not to be refreshed which will lead to a substantial simplification of a memory circuit assembly.
Another application is in a trivalent circuit adapted to be connected between the positive and negative poles of a current source, and to produce in response to an input signal which can be positive, negative or zero, an output signal having a voltage value which substantially corresponds to the voltage of the positive and negative source pole and the intermediate zero volate value respectively. The known circuits for this purpose comprise relatively large numbers of transistors and consume relatively much current, which, in computing networks with large numbers of trivalent stages, can be onerous. A trivalent stage, however, can lead to substantial savings in respect of the usual bivalent stages, if this number and the current consumption might be reduced. According to the invention this can be obtained with a trivalent circuit which is characterised in that it consists of an N-type and a P-type element of the above-mentioned kind, the gate terminals of which are connected with a common input, which elements are connected in series and in opposite senses between the source poles in such a manner that the source terminals there of are connected to the positive and negative poles respectively, and both drain terminals are connected to a common output and to one end of a common feed-back resistor, which resistor, with its other end, is connnected to the common input, all this in such a manner that both elements are never simultaneously conducting. The latter condition provides substantial current savings, and such a trivalent circuit can be assembled in a very simple manner from only two memory elements.
This circuit can be connected as a bivalent circuit by connecting one of the current terminals to the zero voltage.
Since at a zero input signal the output voltage can be floating, it is advisable to clamp this voltage by means of an auxiliary circuit formed by two elements of opposite conductivity type connected in series between the output and a zero-voltage terminal, the gate terminal of one element being connected with the output, and that of the other one with the connecting point between those elements, sai

REFERENCES:
patent: 3886464 (1975-05-01), Dingwall
patent: 4074151 (1978-02-01), Buckley, III et al.
patent: 4663547 (1987-05-01), Baliga et al.

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