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.

Date of Patent:
Nov. 03, 1998

Filed:

Dec. 30, 1996
Applicant:
Inventors:

Georgios I Stamoulis, Campbell, CA (US);

Junji Sugisawa, Santa Clara, CA (US);

Michael Y Zhang, Palo Alto, CA (US);

Assignee:

Intel Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H03K / ; H03K / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
326113 ; 326 98 ; 326121 ; 327403 ; 327404 ;
Abstract

A method and apparatus for low power transmission of digital data. A low power data transmission circuit includes a pass gate having parallel-connected n and p-channel CMOS transistors that transmit input data. To reduce power in a first embodiment, a circuit disables the parallel-connected p-channel pass gate transistor except when the input data is high (logical 1). The p-channel pass gate transistor is needed to pass logical 1's without degradation. In the first embodiment, the n-channel pass gate transistor is enabled to transmit the input data on every clock cycle. In a second embodiment, the circuit disables the parallel-connected n-channel pass gate transistor except when the input data is low (logical 0). The n-channel pass gate transistor is needed to pass logical 0's without degradation. In this embodiment, the p-channel pass gate transistor is enabled to transmit the input data on every clock cycle. These low power data transmission circuits achieve substantial power savings by avoiding unnecessary charging and discharging of the pass gate transistors' gate capacitance on every clock cycle.


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