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:
Oct. 06, 1998
Filed:
Nov. 14, 1996
Applicant:
Inventor:
Nuccio Villa, Roncello, IT;
Assignee:
SGS-Thomson Microelectronics S.r.l., Agrate Brianza, IT;
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H03K / ; H03K / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
326 81 ; 326 17 ; 326 86 ;
Abstract
An interface circuit for coupling the output of an integrated circuit designed for a relatively low supply voltage to a circuit designed to operate at a higher supply voltage employs a cascoded architecture and makes use of two purposely derived reference voltages. The circuit comprises a level rising stage, an output buffer stage (off chip driver stage), an overdrive stage for the pull-up device of the output buffer and a drain follower stage, the pull-up element of which is driven by a second output node of the level rising stage and the pull-down element of which is driven by the inverted input data stream.