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:
Dec. 23, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 12, 2001
Applicant:
Inventor:
Alan Erik Segervall, Half Moon Bay, CA (US);
Assignee:
Natiional Semiconductor Corporation, Santa Clara, CA (US);
Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H05K 5/00 ;
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
H05K 5/00 ;
Abstract
The pads of a semiconductor die are protected from an electrostatic discharge (ESD) event by an ESD protection circuit that has a number of master corner clamps and a number of slave clamps that are controlled by the master corner clamps. The slave clamps are formed under the ESD plus and minus rings which, in turn, are formed under the pads, thereby providing a significant reduction in the height of the I/O cell, and improved ESD performance by reducing metalization IR drops.