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. 26, 2004
Filed:
Jul. 11, 2003
Robert S. Wrathall, Scotts Valley, CA (US);
Micrel, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A circuit for sensing a voltage across a power switch includes a transmission gate, a low pass filter and a comparator. The power switch is controlled by a control signal for turning the power switch on and off to generate a switching voltage at a first current handling terminal of the power switch. The transmission gate is turned on whenever the power switch is turned on to sample the voltage across the power switch when the power switch is turned on. The sampled voltage is filtered by the low pass filter to remove high frequency transients. Finally, the comparator compares the filtered voltage to a reference voltage. The comparator provides an output signal having a first value when the filtered voltage is less than the reference voltage. The circuit can be used as a load sensing circuit to sense the load condition under which the power switch is being operated.