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. 06, 1996
Filed:
Jun. 15, 1993
Applicant:
Inventors:
James W Grace, Los Altos Hills, CA (US);
David M DiPietro, San Jose, CA (US);
Assignee:
Other;
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
G01R / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
324763 ; 3241581 ;
Abstract
Pin electronics for an IC tester are built as an integrated circuit for testing the electrical operation of a device under test (DUT) by applying a test voltage to each of the pins on the DUT and measuring each resulting current. The tester uses diode switches instead of discrete relays to switch between measurement ranges. Leakage current, on the order of nanoamperes from a switch that is open or disabled, is dramatically reduced by reverse biasing the diodes in each diode switch about the switch's diode bridge output node by an equal amount so that the summed current at the output node is almost zero.