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US 8,476,963 B2Granted
Exponential charge pump
AssigneeFreescale Semiconductor, Inc.
InventorsThomas D. Cook, Jeffrey C. Cunningham, Karthik Ramanan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An exponential multistage charge pump is provided wherein node voltages in a pumpcell in one stage of the charge pump are used to control operation of clock drivers in a subsequent stage of the charge pump.
Claims18
A method of using a charge pump comprising:
- providing an input voltage to an input terminal of a first pumpcell, of a first stage of said charge pump;
- using said first pumpcell to generate a first stage output voltage from said input voltage and to generate therefrom a first stage node voltage at a junction of a first transistor pair in said first pumpcell;
- providing said first stage output voltage to an input terminal of a first clock driver transistor in a second stage of said charge pump;
- and
- using said first stage node voltage to control operation of said first clock driver transistor to control generation of a second stage output voltage from said second stage of said charge pump, where said charge pump is a hybrid charge pump comprising a plurality of stages in an exponential configuration and a plurality of stages in an arithmetic configuration.
2 more elements
A charge pump, comprising:
- a first stage pumpcell, of a first stage of the charge pump, comprising first and second inverters coupled to receive an input voltage and to generate a first stage output voltage therefrom;
- first and second capacitors, each having first and second terminals, said first terminals of said first and second capacitors being coupled to first and second nodes, respectively, of said first and second inverters;
- first and second clock drivers coupled to said second terminals of said first and second capacitors, respectively, wherein said first and second clock drivers are responsive to first and second clock signals to control charging of said first and second capacitors, respectively, thereby generating first and second node voltages at said first and second nodes;
- and
- wherein said first and second node voltages are used to control operation of third and fourth clock drivers in a second stage of said charge pump, and wherein said charge pump is a hybrid charge pump comprising a plurality of stages in an exponential configuration and a plurality of stages in an arithmetic configuration.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.