Freescale Semiconductor,inc.

Nxp Usa, Inc.

Steven K Watkins

Stefano Pietri

Anis Mahmoud Jarrar

Kumar Abhishek

James B Eifert

Thomas Henry Luedeke

Garima Sharda

Joel Ray Knight

James M Giandelone

An integrated circuit includes a normal voltage detector configured to detect a normal voltage at which the integrated circuit being fully functional. A first voltage detector detects a first voltage that is less than the normal voltage. A second voltage detector detects a second voltage that is less than the first voltage. A reset module is coupled to a supply voltage, the normal voltage detector, the first voltage detector, and the second voltage detector. The reset module includes test logic to, when the supply voltage rises to the first voltage from the second voltage, perform a pass/fail test when the integrated circuit is in a pass/fail test mode, and perform a power up reset when the integrated circuit in not in the pass/fail test mode.

Secure low voltage testing

A method for managing a reset process in a processing system is provided. The method includes enabling a watch dog unit based on a power-on reset (POR) event. A stuck in reset condition indication is received at the watch dog unit and used to determine whether the received reset condition indication corresponds to an unintentional reset condition. If the received reset condition indication is an indication of an unintentional reset condition, a watch dog POR trigger signal is generated and a reset state machine is repeated for system recovery.

Systems and methods for managing reset

A body bias control circuit including an output coupled to provide a bias voltage to a body terminal. The body bias control circuit is configured to change the bias voltage from a first bias voltage to a second bias voltage over a period of time in which a magnitude of an effective rate of change of the bias voltage varies over the period of time. For voltages between the first and second bias voltages closer to a source voltage, the magnitude of the effective rate of change is smaller than for bias voltages between the first and second bias voltages further from the source voltage.

Body bias control circuit

An integrated circuit including a substrate, multiple devices, and voltage control devices. The devices may include high threshold, low threshold, and standard threshold voltage devices. The devices and the voltage control devices are distributed across and coupled to the same substrate. Each voltage control device is configured to apply a back bias voltage at one of multiple discrete offset voltage levels. At least one voltage control device applies a first offset voltage level for back biasing high threshold voltage devices and at least one voltage control device applies a second offset voltage level for back biasing low threshold voltage devices. The selection of back biasing is based on relative population density of the different types of devices and varies across the substrate. Fine grain reverse back biasing reduces leakage current while reducing any performance decrease. Fine grain forward back biasing improves performance while reducing any leakage current increase.

Fine grain voltage scaling of back biasing

Local Interconnect Network message budget calculation error is reduced by utilizing an eight bit time measurement of the sync byte in the message header. The method determines the header budget separately from the data budget, simplifying the required logic. The sync byte reference time is multiplied by the message data size to determine the data budget.

Growing community of inventors

Austin, TX, United States of America

Steven K Watkins