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US 6,686,778 B2Granted
High voltage tolerant differential input receiver
AssigneeIntel Corporation
InventorLuke S. Theogarajan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A computer system includes at least one high-voltage device and at least one low-voltage device. The low-voltage device has at least one differential input receiver, which reduces the risk of gate oxide stress by ensuring the voltage level on the low-voltage device gate(s) is at or below a predetermined value. The low-voltage device may be a memory controller and the high-voltage device may be a memory.
Claims15
An apparatus, comprising:
- a low-voltage device having a differential input receiver coupled to receive an output from a high-voltage device to maintain a voltage level on at least one gate in the differential input receiver at below or a predetermined value;
- a pair of transistors coupled to each other differentially and to receive an input voltage;
- a negative current mirror coupled to the pair of transistors;
- and
- a set of clamping transistors to clamp voltage drops across a gate-drain junction and a gate-source junction of at least one transistor in the pair of transistors towards a predetermined level in response to a voltage input on the differential input receiver.
2 more elements
An apparatus, comprising:
- an integrated circuit having:
- a differential pair of transistors comprising a first differential transistor and a second differential transistor, wherein a gate of the first differential transistor is coupled to a differential input terminal;
- a first clamping transistor coupled to clamp a drain of first differential transistor towards a reference voltage when a voltage on the differential input terminal reaches a first predetermined value;
- a second clamping transistor coupled to clamp common source terminals of the first and second differential transistors towards the reference voltage when the voltage on the differential input terminal reaches a second predetermined value;
- and
- a negative current mirror coupled to dynamically bias the first differential transistor.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.