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:
Mar. 07, 2000
Filed:
Jul. 16, 1997
Applicant:
Inventors:
Stephen P Sample, Saratoga, CA (US);
Michael R Butts, Portland, OR (US);
Kevin A Norman, Belmont, CA (US);
Rakesh H Patel, Cupertino, CA (US);
Assignees:
Altera Corporation, San Jose, US;
Quickturn Design Systems, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H02H / ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
361 932 ;
Abstract
An overcurrent protection circuit for input/Output (I/O) buffers for a Field Programmable Gate Array wherein short circuits can be detected and the output current limited so as to avoid damaging the device. I/O buffers having the overcurrent protection circuit can detect a contention between the buffers. In order to eliminate the contention, certain I/O buffers will go into a noncontending state.