The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Aug. 17, 1982
Filed:
Jun. 20, 1980
Membrain Limited, Dorset, GB;
Abstract
A probe for sensing the direction of flow of an injected current pulse along a conductor of a circuit under test. The probe is linked to automatic test equipment (ATE), and is triggered to inject the pulse during a test sequence at a step previously found by the ATE to establish a faulty state in the circuit so that the faulty one of several components connected to a circuit node can be identified. The probe injects an approximately triangular-waveform current pulse which has a steep rising edge and a less steep falling edge, thereby inducing a voltage level and thus permits discrimination of the direction of current flow. To detect low level current pulses in the presence of masking noise, the output of the probe is connected to the series combination of a filter, an integrator and an A/D converter. The circuit under test is set to its faulty state, and then the probe is repeatedly operated, first with the injection of the current pulses inhibited and then with current pulses being injected. An average noise level is calculated, and then compared with the average signal level obtained while pulses are being injected to determine the direction of flow of the injected current pulses.