Back to results
US 2022/0102609 A1Published application
Thermo-electric controlled switching circuit
AssigneeTexas Instruments Incorporated
InventorsBarry Jon Male, Henry Litzmann Edwards
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system on an integrated circuit (IC) chip includes an input terminal and a return terminal, a heater, a thermopile, and a switch device. The heater is coupled between the input terminal and the return terminal. The thermopile is spaced apart from the heater by a galvanic isolation region. The switch device includes a control input coupled to an output of the thermopile. The switch device is coupled to at least one output terminal of the IC chip.
Claims15
A system on an integrated circuit (IC) chip, comprising:
- an input terminal and a return terminal;
- a heater coupled between the input terminal and the return terminal;
- a thermopile spaced apart from the heater by a galvanic isolation region;
- and
- a switch device that includes a control input coupled to an output of the thermopile, the switch device coupled to at least one output terminal of the IC chip.
2 more elements
An integrated circuit, comprising:
- an input port configured to receive an input signal;
- a heat source coupled to the input signal, the heat source configured to generate thermal energy that propagates across a galvanic isolation region of the integrated circuit in response to the input signal;
- a thermopile configured to generate a primary voltage output signal in response to the thermal energy received from the heat source;
- and
- a switch device that includes a gate input coupled to receive the primary voltage output signal from the thermopile, the switch device configured to turn on or turn off an output port in response to the primary voltage output signal from the thermopile exceeding a threshold voltage of the switch device.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.