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:
Nov. 04, 2008
Filed:
Jul. 06, 2006
Ke-yuan Chen, Taipei Hsien, TW;
Ke-Yuan Chen, Taipei Hsien, TW;
VIA Technologies Inc., Hsin-Tien, Taipei Hsien, TW;
Abstract
An electro-static discharge, ESD, protection circuit is disclosed. While protecting an ESD event between a given pad and a ground pad, the ESD protection circuit triggers a clamp for ESD protection according to a voltage difference between the given pad and a power pad. Generally, chips already have capacitance between the power pads and the ground pads, such as capacitance contributed by decoupling capacitors for power regulation. Therefore, when the ESD event happens between the given pad and the ground pad, voltage of the power pad holds to make a voltage difference enough for triggering the clamp. Accordingly, the ESD protection circuit can reduce layout area by taking advantage of the original capacitance of chips.