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:
Nov. 04, 1997
Filed:
Jul. 18, 1995
Frederic Paillardet, Grenoble, FR;
Francis Dell'ova, St. Hilaire du Touvet, FR;
Thomson Multimedia S.A., Courbevoie, FR;
Abstract
The disclosure concerns a so-called 'auto-zeroing' comparator of two analog input voltages to be compared, and an analog-to-digital converter using a set of auto-zeroing comparators enabling the number of comparators required for an analog-to-digital conversion to be reduced. The main originality of the invention is that this comparator includes a second stage constituted by an inverter function provided in such a way that only a first transistor is controlled on its gate by the previous stage, a second transistor having its gate and drain short-circuited by a switch during the auto-zeroing phase, and a third transistor used as a capacitor and connected to the gate of said second transistor and also to the supply voltage. The present invention is applicable in particular to all types of CMOS multi-comparison ADCs using at least one 'auto-zeroing' comparator.