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:
Sep. 05, 2000
Filed:
Jan. 14, 1999
Anthony J Suto, Sterling, MA (US);
Robert J Muller, Westford, MA (US);
John D Moniz, Fall River, MA (US);
GenRad, Inc., Westford, MA (US);
Abstract
Pin-driver circuitry in each of an automatic circuit tester (10)'s digital driver/sensor circuits (36) includes a current sensor (R.sub.sense, QS1, QS2, D1, and D2) and comparison circuit (58) that indicate whether the load current supplied by the driver exceeds a level set by a threshold input (CURRENT.sub.-- VALUE). The pin-driver circuitry also includes a timer (60) whose output indicates whether the comparison circuit's output has been asserted for a length of time that exceeds a limit set by a duration input (TIME.sub.-- -VALUE). When it has, the tester disables the driver and thereby prevents damage that could otherwise result from excessive backdrive durations that the test-generation process did not anticipate.