Subscriber line interface circuit (slic) isolation from lighting-induced

Abstract

The present invention uses the input resistances of transconductance amplifiers in a SLIC to isolate battery ground overshoots from the rest of the SLIC circuitry. This is accomplished by allowing the voltages within each driving operational amplifier to rise with any overshoot, and is achieved by powering each operational amplifier with battery ground voltage, which overshoots, instead of with low voltage ground (LVG), which remains at ground. When a lightning surge hits, an overshoot at the SLIC output will occur. However, since the supply voltage of the driving operational amplifiers rises with the overshoot, the voltage stress to the SLIC circuit components is greatly reduced. The remaining SLIC circuitry stays at a low potential and is isolated from the overshoot. In accordance with the present invention, ground overshoot voltages are isolated across a few high ohmic valued resistors instead of appearing across active circuit components. The present invention is not limited only to the transconductance driven type of SLIC which is described herein by way of example only, but also is applicable to any SLIC circuit by powering the output stage with a battery ground voltage and providing resistive isolation to the rest of the circuitry.