Harris Data Communications, Inc.

William T DeRienzo

A metastable arbiter circuit for determining the state of a monitored flip-flop contains an additional flip-flop that is provided on the same semiconductor chip as the operating flip-flop, the metastable condition of which is to be monitored. This additional flip-flop is hardwired in the SET state, so that its high and low outputs can be referenced to indicate when a defined state condition has been achieved in the operating flip-flop. The Q and Q outputs of the second flip-flop from which a pair of reference voltages are derived are applied to a pair of comparators, one comparator being used for negative referencing, the other for positive referencing. Through this circuit combination, there is achieved both level detection and hysteresis to produce a high true output when the complementary outputs of the operating flip-flop have reached a defined stable state.

Growing community of inventors

Pompano Beach, FL, United States of America

William T DeRienzo