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:
Jul. 20, 1993
Filed:
Oct. 05, 1992
Tamas S Szepesi, San Jose, CA (US);
Harry J Bittner, Santa Clara, CA (US);
National Semiconductor Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A current sense/limit circuit senses a current of a power switch and turns off the switch when a peak current of the power switch surpasses a preprogrammed value. To prevent the circuit from reacting to a leading edge current spike resulting from the reverse recovery of a clamp or diode which is a part of most power processing circuits, the current sense/limit circuit monitors the voltage on the power switch and disables the current sense circuitry as long as this voltage does not drop below a predetermined threshold value. The predetermined threshold value is higher than the worst case voltage on the power switch during its on-time under normal operating conditions, and much lower than the switch voltage during off-time. As a result, this method adaptively blocks the current sense mechanism during most of the reverse recovery current spike period. The circuit also includes a timer that turns the switch off if the current sense/limit circuit remains disabled longer than a predetermined time to prevent switch damage resulting from a short circuit of the switch's drain-collector to the supply voltage.