Output driver for high voltage and wide range voltage operation and data output driving circuit using the same

A data output driving circuit comprising:

• a reference voltage generator to compare a voltage corresponding to a high voltage with a power supply voltage autonomously without depending on an external control to variably generate a reference voltage as a bias voltage;
• a level shifter to shift input data to a swing level of the high voltage to output the shifted input data as a pull-up driving control voltage;
• a dynamic gate control unit to receive the high voltage and the reference voltage as an operation power supply and to generate pull-up and pull-down gate control voltages in response to voltage levels of an output node voltage, the pull-up driving control voltage and the input data;
• and
• an output driver comprising a pull-up driver including first, second and third transistors of a first conductivity type connected by a cascode structure between a voltage supply node and the output node and a pull-down driver including first, second and third transistors of a second conductivity type connected by a cascode structure between a ground node and the output node, a driving operation of the output driver being controlled by the dynamic gate control unit.

A level shifter comprising:

• a pull-up unit and a pull-down unit connected to each other through a biasing unit;
• a speed up unit to increase a level shifting operation speed of input data being applied through a first gating node;
• a data contention prevention unit connected between the speed up unit and the pull-up unit to prevent a data contention of output terminal at which a pull-up driving control voltage is output by turning off a pull-up transistor in the pull-up unit before a pull-down transistor in the pull-down unit operates;
• and
• a hot carrier injection prevention unit connected between the biasing unit and the pull-down unit to prevent a hot carrier from being injected into pull-down transistors in the pull-down unit.

An output driver, comprising:

• a pull-up driver including first, second and third first type transistors connected between a voltage supply node and an output node of a pad;
• and
• a pull-down driver including first, second and third second type transistors connected between the output node of the pad and a ground potential node,
• wherein an output voltage is output through the output node of the pad according to an alternative operation of the pull-up driver and the pull-down driver,
• the first, second, and third first type transistors of the pull-up driver have gates to sequentially receive corresponding gate signals such that the pull-up driver is an operable state in response to a difference between voltages of the voltage supply node and the output node, and
• the first, second, and third second type transistors of the pull-down driver have gates to sequentially receive corresponding gate signals such that the pull-down driver is an operable state in response to a difference between voltages of the output node and the ground node.

An output driver comprising:

• a pull-up driver including three or more first type transistors connected between a voltage supply node and an output node of a pad;
• and
• a pull-down driver including three or more second type transistors connected between the output node of the pad and a ground potential node,
• wherein an output voltage is output through the output node of the pad according to an alternative operation of the pull-up driver and the pull-down driver,
• a pull-up voltage range of voltages of the pull-up driver between the voltage supply node and the output node and a pull-down voltage range of voltages of the pull-down driver between the output node and the ground node are same, and
• a voltage range of a voltage to be applied to each of the transistors is smaller than the pull-up and pull-down voltage ranges.

A system comprising:

• an output driver control unit to sequentially generate pull-up gate signals and pull-down gate signals in response to input data and a voltage of a voltage supply node;
• and
• an output driver comprising:
• a pull-up driver including three or more first type transistors connected in series between the voltage supply node and an output node of a pad to be operable according to the sequential pull-up gate signals to output an output voltage to the output node of the pad;
• and
• a pull-down driver including three or more second type transistors connected in series between the output node of the pad and a ground node to be operable according to the sequential pull-down gate signals to output the output voltage to the output node of the pad.