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.

Date of Patent:
May. 07, 2013

Filed:

Nov. 08, 2010
Applicants:

Tapan Pattnayak, Bangalore, IN;

Nilima Mahadev Malhotra, Andhra Pradesh, IN;

Mark R. Tennyson, Irvine, CA (US);

Inventors:

Tapan Pattnayak, Bangalore, IN;

Nilima Mahadev Malhotra, Andhra Pradesh, IN;

Mark R. Tennyson, Irvine, CA (US);

Assignee:

Conexant Systems, Inc., Newport Beach, CA (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H03K 19/003 (2006.01); H03K 19/0175 (2006.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
Abstract

The present invention significantly reduces the chip size of a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) field-effect transistor, which serves as a driver for output impedance drivers, such as, but not limited to, double data rate (DDR2) synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM). In an embodiment of the invention, a voltage drop across the driver is a decreased ratio of the supply voltage, e.g., three-tenths of the supply voltage, lower than half of the supply voltage. A smaller voltage drop allows a lower current and a higher impedance to be used in the driver. By having a higher impedance across the driver, the physical area needed for the DDR2 driver is reduced because a transistor with a smaller physical width can be used. A DDR2 driver operating at the decreased ratio is the functional equivalent of the driver operating with the supply voltage or half of the supply voltage, with the added advantage of the reduced area.


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