Electricity: electrical systems and devices – Safety and protection of systems and devices – Transient responsive
Patent
1999-01-04
2000-12-05
Ballato, Josie
Electricity: electrical systems and devices
Safety and protection of systems and devices
Transient responsive
361 56, H02H 322
Patent
active
061575305
ABSTRACT:
A novel ESD protection circuit for multiple power supplies, having both inventive inter-rail ESD circuitry and inventive single-rail ESD circuitry. The inter-rail ESD circuitry is scaleable and comprises one or more diode strings for interconnecting a pair of power rails. The ESD trigger voltage for a diode string is set by the number of diodes within the diode string and preferably a sufficient number of diodes are provided within each diode string for power-up and power-down sequence independence. The single-rail ESD circuitry is connected to a level-shifter and may comprise an RC discriminator comprising two NFET transistors connected in series. The RC discriminator may be connected to a clamping transistor via a buffering circuit, such as an inverter stage, that isolates the gate capacitance of the clamping transistor from the RC discriminator so that the RC characteristics of the RC discriminator are unaffected by the choice of the clamping transistor. The ESD protection circuit may be constructed from a selection from user-selectable discrete circuit elements formed on the chip.
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Pequignot James P.
Rahman Tariq
Sloan Jeffrey H.
Stout Douglas W.
Voldman Steven H.
Ballato Josie
Huynh Kim
International Business Machines - Corporation
Shkurko Eugene I.
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