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:
Jan. 02, 1990
Filed:
May. 10, 1989
Stephen E Saddow, Howard County, MD (US);
Robert V Garver, Boyds, MD (US);
Roger Kaul, Olney, MD (US);
The United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A monolithic microwave integrated circuit is enclosed within an ionizable gas filled housing having a terminal protection device integral with the circuit's substrate. A photon generating region extends within the substrate and along a portion of the surface area of the substrate for facilitating the ionizing of the gas. First and second electrodes, in contact with the substrate surface area and disposed on opposite sides of the photon generating region, have a plurality of cantilevered protrusions extending over the surface of the substrate and equally spaced from one another forming spark-gaps therebetween. One electrode is connected to an input to the device while the other is connected to ground. When a potential difference between the first and second electrodes increases towards a predetermined value, due to high RF input energy, the photon generating region is operatively biased to emit photons, which ionize the gas, resulting in a voltage discharge across the spark-gaps to occur quickly and at a lower voltage than the semiconductor breakdown voltage.