Patent · US Expired

Process insensitive off-chip driver

US5534803A · kind A · utility

12Cited by
9References
12Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateApr 12, 1995
Grant dateJul 9, 1996
Priority date
Expiry dateApr 12, 2015

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH03K19/00384
  • WIPO fieldBasic communication processes
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A small and efficient control circuit for a compensated CMOS off-chip driver and a driver circuit incorporating the control circuit. The control circuit uses an exclusive OR gate as a phase detector to determine the phase difference between a system clock and a delayed version of the system clock. An RC filter smooths the output of the exclusive OR gate to produce a voltage proportional to the delay introduced in the CMOS circuitry by environmental and process variables. The voltage from the RC filter is used as a control voltage to control the effective channel width of the effective pull-down device of the off-chip driver circuit. An off-chip driver using the control circuit is used in the I/O unit of a CMOS integrated circuit chip.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.