Patent · US Expired

Open drain driver, and a switch comprising the open drain driver

US7427887B2 · kind B2 · utility

8Cited by
14References
43Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateMay 13, 2005
Grant dateSep 23, 2008
Priority date
Expiry dateMay 13, 2025

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
  • CPC primaryH03K17/6872
  • WIPO fieldBasic communication processes
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

An open drain driver (7) selectively switches a MOSFET switch (MN1) which is passively held in the conducting state into the non-conducting state. The MOSFET switch (MN1) switches an AC analogue input signal on a main input terminal (3) to a main output terminal (4) and the gate of the MOSFET switch (MN1) is AC coupled by a capacitor (C1) to the drain thereof. The open drain driver (7) comprises a first MOSFET (MN2) and a second MOSFET (MN3) through which the gate of the MOSFET switch (MN1) is pulled to ground (Vss). The gate of the first MOSFET (MN2) is coupled to the supply voltage (VDD) for maintaining the first MOSFET (MN2) in the open state. A control signal is applied to the gate of the second MOSFET (MN3) for selectively operating the open drain driver (7) in the conducting state for operating the MOSFET switch (MN1) in the non-conducting state. When the second MOSFET (MN3) is in the non-conducting state, the first MOSFET (MN2) remains in the conducting state until the voltage on a coupling node (9) between the first and second MOSFETs (MN2,MN3) equals the difference between its gate voltage and its threshold voltage, at which stage, any over-voltages applied to the gate of …

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