Lucent Technologies Inc.

Mark S Paradiso

Douglas C Smith

Dale E Lynn

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection for an electrical device is provided through an arrangement which detects an ESD event occurring in the device and reconfigures a processor in the device after the ESD event so that the event is essentially transparent to a user of the device. A detector circuit incorporated into the device detects the occurrence of the ESD event and, in response thereto, generates a trigger signal which is coupled to the processor. Upon receipt of this trigger signal, the processor retrieves status information that is stored in non-volatile memory and was previously contained in a program being executed just prior to the ESD event, reconfigures itself using the status information, and resumes operation with this status information. A data latch connects to the processor and buffers data from this processor to circuitry controlled by the processor. During the occurrence of the ESD event, the trigger signal is coupled to the data latch for holding the data in an output buffer in the latch. This data, generated by the processor just prior to the occurrence of the ESD event, maintains the circuitry normally controlled by the processor in its appropriate operating state while the processor is being reconfigured.

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North Haledon, NJ, United States of America

Mark S Paradiso