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AssigneeSTMicroelectronics S.r.l.
InventorsJames Chester Meador, Giovanni Gozzini, Marco Sabatini
Estimating the term…
Current drawn by the fingerprint sensor subject to electrostatic discharge events not fully dissipated by a pad ring is monitored. Upon detection of an overcurrent (e.g., an increase in the current drawn by approximately an order of magnitude) indicating that a latchup condition has occurred, power is removed from the sensor, together with all inputs to the sensor, until the latchup condition is cleared. If a processor or controller is employed by the sensor, the processor or controller is concurrently reset since a firmware crash may be induced by the latchup condition. If a parallel port or other communications connection is employed by the sensor, the overcurrent signal is employed to directly disconnect power and input signals to the sensor.
A method of automatically recovering from a latchup condition, comprising:
An automatic latchup recovery mechanism, comprising:
A fingerprint sensor device having automatic latchup recovery, comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.