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US 5,412,599 AGranted
Null consumption, nonvolatile, programmable switch
AssigneeSGS-Thomson Microelectronics S.A.
InventorsVincenzo Daniele, Mirella Benedetti, Nuccio Villa
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AssigneeSGS-Thomson Microelectronics S.A.
InventorsVincenzo Daniele, Mirella Benedetti, Nuccio Villa
Estimating the term…
A null consumption CMOS switch which may be set by nonvolatile programming is formed by a pair of complementary transistors preferably having a common drain and a common gate. The common gate is coupled to the floating gate a programmable and erasable, nonvolatile memory cell. The common gate/floating gate coupling can be a unitary floating gate structure. The floating gate directly drives the ON or OFF states of the two complementary transistors. On an output node of the switch, represented by the common drain of the pair of transistors, a signal present on a source node of one or the other of the two complementary transistors is replicated. The state of charge of the floating gate, imposed by programming or erasing, may be such as to reach advantageously a potential higher than the supply voltage or lower than the ground potential of the circuit. Different embodiments, such as a polarity selection, a path selector, a TRISTATE selector, and a logic gate selector are described.
A null consumption integrated switch settable by programming in a nonvolatile manner, which comprises
An integrated path selector comprising a circuit having two electrical paths, a complementary pair of transistors, constituting an interruption means of a respective electric path and having a gate, and a programmable and erasable memory cell controlling the transistors, wherein the gates of the transistors and a floating gate of the memory cell constitute a unitary gate member.
An integrated polarity selector comprising a circuit implementing two electrical paths between an input and an output terminal of the circuit, each electrical path including a transistor that is complementary to the transistor in the other electrical path and wherein one of said electrical paths includes an inverter, wherein said complementary transistors have a common drain connected to one of said terminals of the circuit, and a common gate which forms a unitary gate member with a floating gate of an integrated programmable and erasable memory cell.
A programmable control switching device settable by programming in a nonvolatile manner, which comprises
A programmable control switching device, comprising
A programmable control switching device, comprising
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.