Back to results
US 6,388,475 B1Granted
Voltage tolerant high drive pull-up driver for an I/O buffer
AssigneeIntle Corporation
InventorsLawrence T. Clark, Adam Brand
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A series stack including a first and a second MVSD transistor is coupled between a positive power supply and a pad. The series stack has a central node. A p-driver including a first and a second P-type transistor is coupled in series with a source of the first p-type transistor coupled to a positive power supply. The drain of the second p-type transistor is coupled to the central node.
Claims17
An apparatus comprising:
- a series stack including a first MOS vertical source drain (MVSD) transistor and a second MVSD transistor, the stack to be coupled between a positive power supply and a pad and having a central node;
- and
- a p-driver including a first p-type transistor having a source to be coupled to the positive power supply and a second p-type transistor coupled to the first p-type transistor and having its drain coupled to the central node.
A method comprising:
- turning on an MOS vertical source drain (MVSD) stack coupled between a pad and a positive power supply;
- driving a central node of the MVSD stack to a power supply voltage minus a threshold voltage of one of the MVSD transistors;
- turning on a pull-up driver coupled to a central node of the MVSD stack;
- and
- driving the central node from the pull-up driver to the power supply voltage.
2 more elements
An integrated circuit including an output driver, the output driver comprising:
- a series stack including a first MVSD transistor and a second MVSD transistor, the stack coupled between the positive power supply and a pad and having a central node;
- and
- a p-driver having a first transistor with a source to be coupled to a positive power supply and a second transistor having a drain coupled to the central node.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.