Texas Instruments Corporation

Abhijeeth Aarey Premanath

Mark Edward Wentroble

Richard Edwin Hubbard

Anant Shankar Kamath

Roland Sperlich

Lokesh Kumar Gupta

Maxwell G Robertson

Dejan Radic

Shailendra Kumar Baranwal

Wesley Ray

Alan Stephen Bass

Terry Mayhugh

Yihuang Lin

Vighnesh Rudra Das

A circuit for providing input surge protection in a digital input module, the circuit comprising a surge protection input stage, including a bridge rectifier coupled to receive the bidirectional input signal, and coupled to the unidirectional input of the digital input module. The bridge rectifier comprises TVS rectifiers TVSand TVS, and diode rectifiers Dand D, intercoupled in a bridge rectifier configuration in which: TVSand TVSare transient voltage suppression diodes; and rectifiers Dand Dare rectifier diodes. Diodes TVSand TVScan be implemented as either respective unidirectional TVS diodes; or a single bidirectional TVS diode. The digital input module can be a digital input receiver, or a opto-isolator/coupler, or other digital input module.

Surge protection for digital input module

A CAN bus transceiver includes CAN bus fault detection circuitry that can provide detailed information to simplify the task of the service technician when there is a CAN bus fault. Voltage and current measurements of the CAN bus are made and from them a fault type is determined. A time-domain reflectometer monitors the CAN bus signals for transmitted and reflected signals and from them a distance to the fault is determined. Either or both values are provided to a service technician to allow error determination and correction.

Control area network (CAN) bus fault detection

Two CAN bus transceivers utilized in a single integrated circuit package with the CAN bus connections between the two transceivers being inverted. Thus, one transceiver is connected to the CAN bus high and low lines while the other transceiver is connected to the CAN bus low and high lines. Both transceivers power up in a standby condition and each transceiver is monitoring for wake up signals on the CAN bus. The transceiver that is correctly connected to the CAN bus detects wake up signals. When the wake up signals are detected at that transceiver, that transceiver is brought to full operating state and the other transceiver is placed in a full standby condition. Additional input resistance is provided with each transceiver to maintain the proper input resistance for the integrated circuit.

Control area network (CAN) transceivers with automatic polarity detection

One example includes a switch circuit. The switch circuit includes a transistor configured to activate in response to an activation voltage at an activation terminal of the transistor. The switch circuit also includes a current source coupled to the activation terminal and being configured to generate an activation current. The switch circuit further includes a driver control circuit interconnecting the activation terminal and a voltage rail. The driver control circuit includes digital counter logic configured to cycle through a predetermined number of count values based on an oscillator signal. The driver control circuit is configured to adjust an amplitude of the activation voltage at each of the predetermined number of count values based on the activation current to provide a soft-start activation of the transistor.

Soft-start switch circuit

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Allen, TX, United States of America

Abhijeeth Aarey Premanath