Microchip Technology Inc.

Dong Wang

Jim Nolan

Kumen Blake

HongZhong Xu

Milan Rai

A circuit for electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection may protect sensitive circuits in the presence of both positive and negative ESD events. A protection transistor may be coupled to a pad, and a protection clamp may be coupled to the protection transistor. The protection transistor may be in an isolation n-well, and a current limiting resistor may be coupled from the pad to the isolation n-well. In operation, the current limiting resistor may limit the current during negative ESD events.

Device and system for ESD protection

A high side current sensing amplifier architecture is simplified and improved over prior art current sensing amplifier circuits by using chopping only, without requiring auto-zeroing, and by using a simpler (and faster) switched capacitor filter instead of an auto-zeroing integrator filter. Also, VIP (positive DC sense node) is merged with the VDDHV (power supply) node, such that the integrated circuit package requires only a single node (package pin) to accommodate both the VIP and VDDHV connections for the current sensing amplifier circuit, resulting in being able to use a smaller integrated circuit package. A small resistor is coupled between VIP and VDDHV to reduce the offset considerably. A low latency time high voltage level shifter is provided which is essential for precise chopping operation.

Current sense amplifier architecture and level shifter

An amplifier includes a differential positive input, a differential negative input, and a transistor. The transistor is communicatively coupled to the differential positive input and differential negative input at a source of the transistor. The transistor is configured to track input common mode of the differential positive input and differential negative input.

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Chandler, AZ, United States of America

Dong Wang