Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices – circuits – and – Signal converting – shaping – or generating – Particular stable state circuit
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-21
2001-05-29
Wells, Kenneth B. (Department: 2816)
Miscellaneous active electrical nonlinear devices, circuits, and
Signal converting, shaping, or generating
Particular stable state circuit
C327S200000, C327S217000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06239638
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to SR flip-flop using a device which has negative resistance between two output electrodes provided on one of two semiconductor regions in a fixed reversible reverse breakdown condition of the semiconductor junction formed between the two semiconductor regions.
BACKGROUND ART
A conventional SR flip-flop has been made by the circuit of a feedback device using three terminal two active devices. As a result, the device has complexity circuit structure and its operation speed cannot be reduced. To settle these problems,the SR flip-flop of the present invention is constructed by the bistable circuit using the device, which is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,229,636 or JP PATENT DOCUMENT 5-60270.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention uses a semiconductore device as an active device of the SR flip-flop. The semiconductor device comprises a first semiconductor region of first conductivity type and a second semiconductor region of second conductivity type and two output electrodes in the first semiconductor region and an electrode in the second semiconductivity region which applies with two output electrodes the breakdown voltage in reverse direction to semiconductor junction formed between first and second semiconductor regions. Semiconductor device has bistable output at two output electrodes which is based on the negative resistance generated between the two output electrodes in a fixed reversible reverse breakdown condition of the said semiconductor junction.
Here, the first and second semiconductor region have an area such that carriers which have been accelerated in the depletion region of semiconductor junction maintain their high energy condition. For example, it is less than about 10 &mgr;m on a side of the rectangle for the stretch and less than about 1 &mgr;m for the thickness in the planar structure.
The bistable circuit using semiconductor device is hence fabricated as follows. Namely, each one side terminal of two identical resistors are connected respectively to electrodes in the region. An electrical power source is connected between the common terminal of the other sides of two identical resistors and electrode in another region which applies a predetermined voltage to the junction.
The SR flip-flop of the present invention is constructed based on this bistable circuit. Namely, the output terminals of two identical trigger pulse generators are connected respectively to electrodes of the bistable circuit directly or through resistive or capasitive devices. In this construction, the bistable output at two output electrodes in a fixed reversible reverse breakdown condition of the semiconductor junction through which the settled power current is flowing is displayed.
The arrangement of SR flip-flop motion is explained as follows. The trigger pulses generated by two generators is first set to be a ‘1’ condition. And, when one of the electrodes has the trigger pulse applied by the corresponding generators
9
or
10
, its electrical potential condition has been turned over, and therefore it is set that the condition before the bistable condition turned over is a ‘0’ condition and the condition after the bistable condition turned over is a ‘1’ condition.
The explanation of the practical motion is as follows. For example, in the case where the bistable condition of the electrical potential of one electrode is low and that of the other electlode is high, the closed current is flowing along the circuit formed by the circular sequence of the other electrode, resistor, electrode and region. Trigger pulses of ‘1’ are positive trigger pulses. In this condition, when only the second electrode has been applied a trigger pulse ‘1’ by a generator, the closed current flowing through the second electrode decreases in an instant. This decreasing of the current weakens the contribution to the negative resistance in the near area of the second electrode of both the minority carriers of low energies which has not yet been accelerated in the depletion region of the semiconductor junction and the majority carriers of high energies which has been accelerated in the depletion region.
This decline drives the bistable condition of the device to turn over. Then, the electrical potential of changes from high condition ‘0’ to low condition ‘1’.
In the other elementary case of SR motion where the trigger pulses ‘1’ are applied to two electrodes, the driving effects are mutually canceled and the bistable condition does not turn over. As well, in the case that the trigger pulses ‘1’ are not applied to both electrodes, the bistable condition is not turned over.
In this way, the SR motion is carried out precisely by applying trigger pulses ‘1’ directly to the two output electrodes.
REFERENCES:
patent: 2879412 (1959-03-01), Hoge et al.
patent: 3131311 (1964-04-01), Ross
patent: 3427563 (1969-02-01), Lasher
patent: 3588736 (1971-06-01), McGroddy
patent: 59-211283 (1984-11-01), None
patent: 59-211284 (1984-11-01), None
patent: 60-49678 (1985-03-01), None
patent: 61-142777 (1986-06-01), None
patent: 5-50149 (1993-07-01), None
patent: 5-60270 (1993-09-01), None
patent: 8-79022 (1996-03-01), None
“Dynamics of the Single Barrier Heterostructure Hot Electron Diode”, Aug. 15, 1997, by A. Reklaitis et al., pp. 1706-1710.
“Negative Differential Conductance in Three-Terminal Silicon Tunneling Device”; Jul. 9, 1996; by Junji Koga et al., pp. 1435-1437.
IEE Proceedings-G, vol. 140, No. 6, Dec. 1993 “Logic Design Based on Negative Differential Resistance Characteristics of Quantum Electronic Devices”, by S. Mohan et al., pp. 383-391.
“Impedance Properties of High-Frequency PIN Diodes,” Solid-State Electronics, vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 121-128, 1998, by I. V. Lebedev et al.
Dinh Paul
Parkhurst & Wendel L.L.P.
Wells Kenneth B.
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