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:
Jun. 28, 2011
Filed:
Apr. 22, 2008
Bahman Farzan, Mountain View, CA (US);
Hung Pham Le, San Jose, CA (US);
Bahman Farzan, Mountain View, CA (US);
Hung Pham Le, San Jose, CA (US);
Exar Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
An electrostatic discharge protection device is disposed between true-complement input pins of a differential signal pair and a ground node. A common node couples the three diode stacks together. A first and a second diode stack each connect to one of the differential signal pair input pins. The third diode stack couples to the ground node. Each of the diode stacks is fabricated by a pair of high concentration p-type contact dopant regions within a low concentration n-well region. Each of the p-type contact dopant regions is configured to form back-to-back diodes connected in series with cathodes in common. In protecting common mode receivers, current from an ESD event is channeled to ground rather than to the complementary receiver node. The diode stacks are capable of withstanding a 15 kV incident and save up to 25% in area compared to a fully parallel configuration for differential signal pairs.