Google Inc.

WeiFeng Pan

Gregory Sizikov

Alexander Wroblewski

Tsung-Dar Cheng

Liang Ching Tseng

Warwick Ka Kui Wong

Jingyu Huang

The present document describes a camera module with electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. In particular, the camera module includes a lightning rod structure, which guides an ESD current to a safe location (e.g., system ground) when a lens retainer of the camera module is hit by an ESD spark. Due to the impact on camera focus tuning and the risk of audio rub and buzz, the lightning rod structure does not physically touch the lens retainer. As such, a gap separates the lightning rod structure from the lens retainer. When the lens retainer is stressed by an ESD spark, the gap is broken down and a conductive path is established to guide the ESD current to the safe location through the lightning rod structure. In this way, the ESD current flows along a controlled path instead of jumping to arbitrary locations, which protects nearby susceptible circuitry.

Camera module with electrostatic discharge protection

An apparatus for selectively connecting a decoupling capacitor in parallel with a load on a power bus during a hot swap power up. In an aspect, an apparatus includes a capacitive coupling connected to a hot swap control circuit and that capacitively couples first and second power conductors when the output of the hot swap control circuit indicates a monitored load has attained a voltage threshold.

Hot swap decoupling for noise reduction and failure prevention

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

WeiFeng Pan