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:
Dec. 24, 1996
Filed:
Nov. 22, 1995
Christopher W Johansson, Horseshoe Bend, ID (US);
Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Abstract
Individual devices of a redundant array of independent devices (RAID) are coupled to an electrical power supply. For devices having widely varying load impedances, such as disks, incident with the coupling of electrical power thereto, the replacement or addition of a device in the system, while the system is in operation, causes unacceptable power transients in the power supply. To minimize such power transients, a transient suppression circuit is employed to isolate the load impedance of the device from the power supply. Isolation is achieved in the transient suppression circuit by employing an active circuit element, such as a MOSFET power transistor, as the power coupler. A capacitor controlled voltage divider circuit, incident with the coupling of electrical power thereto, couples a time varying gate voltage, which changes as a function of the rate of charge of the capacitor, to the MOSFET power transistor. This slowly increases MOSFET conduction, thereby providing controlled conductive coupling of the electrical load of the device to the power supply.