Denso Corporation

Hirofumi Abe

Hideaki Ishihara

Shoichi Okuda

Hiroyuki Ban

Shigeki Takahashi

Kingo Ota

Yoshinori Arashima

Akira Suzuki

Yutaka Fukuda

Hiroshi Fujii

Naoya Tsuchiya

Hirokazu Itakura

Shinichi Noda

Sinichi Noda

A semiconductor device for driving a load includes a first semiconductor switching element interposed between a power supply terminal and a load, a second semiconductor switching element interposed between the load and a ground terminal, a high-side driver, a low-side driver, and a voltage regulator. The voltage regulator reduces a voltage applied to a control terminal of the second switching element, when a voltage of a load terminal of the second switching element is lower than a predetermined voltage. Then, a voltage applied between the load terminal and the ground terminal of the second switching element increases, and accordingly a voltage applied between the power supply terminal and the load terminal of the first switching element decreases.

Semiconductor device for driving a load

The semiconductor output circuit of the invention has an insulated gate transistor including a first terminal, a second terminal and a gate terminal, a conductive state of the insulated gate transistor being controlled by a drive circuit connected to the gate terminal, a capacitive element and a first resistor connected in series between the second terminal and the gate terminal, and a second resistor connected between the gate terminal and the first terminal. The insulated gate transistor has a cell area formed on a semiconductor substrate, in which a plurality of unit cells each defining a unit transistor connected between the first and second terminals are laid out. The second resistor has such a resistance that all of the unit transistors defined by the unit cells are turned on uniformly when electrostatic discharge is applied to the first or second terminal.

Semiconductor output circuit

In a circuit according to the present invention, a multi-collector transistor is provided which includes first to third collectors so that, when a current does not flow from the second collector, a current from the first collector increases but a current from the third collector does not vary. When transistors of the circuit turn off because the voltage of an input signal gets out of an in-phase input voltage range, the supply of the current from the second collector comes to a stop and, hence, the current from the first collector increases. In this situation, further transistors carry out their on/off operations, thereby fixing the output of the circuit to a low level. That is, this circuit can, irrespective of poor pair compatibility between the transistors, fix the output logical level to a desired level when the voltage of an input signal gets out of an in-phase input voltage range.

Operational amplification circuit, overheat detecting circuit and comparison circuit

A semiconductor device includes a substrate, a plurality of bump electrodes disposed on the substrate, and a support area for supporting the substrate in case of carrying the substrate. The support area is disposed on a surface of the substrate, on which the bump electrode is disposed, and is disposed at a predetermined position, which is dotted on the surface of the substrate. In this device, the support area is sufficiently small, and the number of the bump electrodes can increase. Moreover, degree of freedom in a configuration of the support area increases.

Semiconductor device having bump electrode and support area

In a voltage booster, a voltage detection circuit detects a battery voltage as an input voltage. If the input voltage is lower than a threshold level, an oscillation circuit outputs a gate signal having a relatively high frequency to increase the driving performance of a driving circuit. If the input voltage is higher than the threshold level, the frequency of the gate signal is lowered so as to prevent the driving performance of the driving circuit from rising to an excessively high value. As a result, a predetermined boosted voltage can be obtained regardless of variations in input voltage without using a filter for eliminating noise.

Voltage booster having noise reducing structure

Semiconductor equipment includes a semiconductor substrate, a plurality of transistors having a source cell and a drain cell disposed alternately on the substrate, and upper and lower layer wirings for electrically connecting the source cells and the drain cells. The lower layer wiring includes a first source wiring for connecting the neighboring source cells and a first drain wiring for connecting the neighboring drain cells. The upper layer wiring includes a second source wiring for connecting to the first source wiring and a second drain wiring for connecting to the first drain wiring. A width of the second source wiring is wider than that of the first source wiring, and a width of the second drain wiring is wider than that of the first drain wiring. The second source wiring and the second drain wiring are disposed alternately.

Semiconductor equipment

A reference voltage circuit and an operational amplifier operate when an output voltage is produced from an output terminal of a power supply circuit. When the output voltage is low in the rising phase of a power source voltage, a transistor Qin a startup circuit turns on and a transistor Qturns off to surely turn on transistors Qand Q. Upon the output voltage exceeding a predetermined level, the transistor Qturns off and an ordinary feedback control starts.

Power supply circuit having a start up circuit

In the clamp circuit, the first transistor shifts a target clamp voltage by a gate-source voltage to output the target clamp voltage. The buffer circuit inputs the shifted voltage and output a reference voltage on the inputted shifted voltage. The gate of the second transistor is connected to the output terminal of the buffer circuit. The source of the second transistor is connected to the input terminal of the first transistor. In this structure, the reference voltage is supplied to the gate of the second transistor so that, when a terminal voltage of the input terminal of the IC is not less than a clamp voltage corresponding to the sum of the reference voltage and a threshold voltage of the second transistor, the second transistor turns on, whereby the terminal voltage is clamped to a clamp voltage related to the target clamp voltage.

Clamp circuit

A comparator, having an offset of 0.1V, compares a terminal voltage Vin with a clamp voltage V (5.1V). When an overvoltage input exceeding the V is entered to an input terminal, the comparator turns on a transistor Q The current flows across an externally provided resistor R the input terminal, and the transistor Q and flows into an output terminal of an operational amplifier. With a voltage drop at the resistor R the terminal voltage Vin starts decreasing toward an output voltage Vc of the operational amplifier.

Growing community of inventors

Gamagori, Japan

Hirofumi Abe