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:
Mar. 02, 2010
Filed:
Jun. 06, 2006
Richard Morisson, Grenoble, FR;
Richard Morisson, Grenoble, FR;
E2V Semiconductors, , FR;
Abstract
The invention relates to current switches using a differential pair of transistors and being able to operate under a low supply voltage Vcc. According to the invention, provision is made for the current switch to include two differential pairs of two transistors each (T, T; T, T), cascaded together, the second pair (T, T) having complementary current outputs (H, Hb) that flip according to the states of the inputs (E, Eb). The first pair (T, T) is connected to a ground (GND) through a current source, supplying a current of value Io and comprising a transistor (Ts) biased by a voltage Vbias, and it is supplied by a voltage equal to N·Vbe+Vbias, where N is a whole number (preferably equal to 1) and Vbe is the base-emitter voltage of the transistor (Ts). The second pair (T, T) is connected to ground directly through a resistance (R). The invention can be applied to the on-off control of sample-and-hold circuits, multiplexers, fast low-voltage logic circuits, etc.