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:
Mar. 19, 1991
Filed:
Jan. 09, 1990
Philip M Bator, Farmington, MI (US);
Rex J Eccleston, Karben, DE;
David J Rutkowski, Grosse Ile, MI (US);
Ford Motor Company, Dearborn, MI (US);
Abstract
An active clamp circuit for an inductive load switching circuit includes a zener current control resistor to set the breakdown current in a zener diode of the clamp circuit. The zener breakdown current is set at a sufficiently high level to ensure that the zener diode is operated at a point beyond its 'knee' region and therefore does not generate interfering levels of microplasmic noise (MPN). The zener current control resistor is provided in addition to a circuit speed control resistor such that there is substantially independent control of the switching circuit operating speed and the breakdown current of the zener diode of the active clamp circuit.