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US 7,411,376 B2Granted
Voltage regulator having overcurrent protection circuit and method manufacturing voltage regulator
AssigneeSeiko Instruments Inc.
InventorWei Zhang
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A voltage regulator has a sense transistor through which a sense current flows in accordance with a magnitude of a load current, and a sense resistor through which the sense current flows. A control transistor controls the load current in accordance with a voltage across the sense resistor. A current measurement transistor measures the sense current flowing through the sense transistor and is disposed adjacent to the sense transistor. A measuring characteristics transistor measures characteristics of the control transistor and is disposed adjacent to the control transistor.
Claims1
A voltage regulator comprising:
- a sense transistor through which a sense current flows in accordance with a magnitude of a load current;
- a sense resistor through which the sense current flows;
- a control transistor that controls the load current in accordance with a voltage across the sense resistor;
- a current measurement transistor that measures the sense current flowing through the sense transistor, the current measurement transistor being disposed adjacent to the sense transistor;
- a measuring characteristics transistor that measures characteristics of the control transistor, the measuring characteristic transistor being disposed adjacent to the control transistor;
- and
- a fuse element that is cut after the current measurement transistor measures the sense current and the measuring characteristics transistor measures the characteristics of the control transistor so that a current cannot flow through the current measurement transistor and the measuring characteristics transistor;
- wherein a current that flows through the current measurement transistor is equal to the sense current that flows through the sense transistor.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.