Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Gating
Reexamination Certificate
1999-03-16
2001-04-24
Callahan, Timothy P. (Department: 2816)
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Gating
C326S056000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06222413
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to integrated circuit chips and to integrated circuit devices, and more particularly, relates to a receiver assisted net driver circuit.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ART
As used in the following description and claims, the term net means a connection or wire between a number of integrated circuit chips or between transistors in a circuit.
Chip-to-chip nets that are unterminated, multi-drop and long as compared to the transition time of the driving chip are difficult to switch fast. When the driver transition rate and the driver output impedance are selected to switch the net quickly, a lot of energy is left in the net after all of the receiving nodes have crossed the switching threshold. This remnant energy must dissipate in the driver; otherwise the remnant energy will disturb subsequent data transitions.
A need exists for an improved net driver circuit. It is desirable to provide such net drive circuit that enables faster transitions. It is desirable to provide such net drive circuit that effectively dissipates switching energy after all of the receiving nodes have switched. It is desirable to provide such net drive circuit that minimizes noise for the transitions.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A principal object of the present invention is to provide an improved net driver circuit. Other objects are to provide such net driver circuit substantially without negative effects and that overcomes many of the disadvantages of prior art arrangements.
In brief, an improved net driver circuit is provided. The net driver circuit includes a control circuit. A bidirectional input/output (I/O) circuit is coupled to the control circuit. The bidirectional input/output (I/O) circuit includes a receiver and a driver. The control circuit monitors the net and responsive to a new changed state of the net being identified, the control circuit enables the driver to drive the net to the new changed state.
In accordance with features of the invention, the receiver senses the current state of the net and the control circuit remembers the previous state of the net. When the net state is the same as the previous state, the control circuit causes the driver to be in a high impedance state.
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“All The Right Moves”, A VLSI Architecture for Chess, ACM Distinguished Dissertations, by Carl Ebeling, 1987, pp. 114-115.
Callahan Timothy P.
International Business Machines - Corporation
Nguyen Hai L.
Pennington Joan
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