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. 02, 2008
Filed:
Aug. 16, 2005
Applicant:
Zhengwei Zhang, San Jose, CA (US);
Inventor:
Zhengwei Zhang, San Jose, CA (US);
Assignee:
Monolithic Power Systems, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Attorneys:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H02H 5/04 (2006.01); H02H 3/00 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract
Methods and apparatus are disclosed for protecting circuits from damages caused by elevated temperatures. Presented embodiments illustrate IC thermal protection circuits that shut down power delivery circuits when the circuit temperature reaches a predefined upper threshold and restart the circuit when the circuit cools down to a predefined lower threshold. Other embodiments provide soft shutdown and soft restart, where not only the temperature range between the shutdown and the restart is predetermined, but also the time between the start of a shutdown process and the complete shutdown is controllable.