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:
Dec. 08, 2015
Filed:
Nov. 21, 2012
Microelectronics Research and Development Corporation, Colorado Springs, CO (US);
Dean Allum, Colorado Springs, CO (US);
MICROELECTRONICS RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT, Colorado Springs, CO (US);
Abstract
The invention is a radiation hardened charge-pump system and method of using polysilicon diodes and metal-to-metal capacitors in a standard CMOS process technology that provides boosted positive or negative voltages higher than power supply voltage levels, that reduces or eliminates field leakage, bipolar snap-back, SEL problems, and the SEGR problem. The charge-pump system is arranged as multiple parallel redundant pumps to harden the circuit so that if there is a single-event transient, or an unknown polysilicon-diode failure in a new technology, the remaining pumps will continue to operate. A diode placed at the end of each redundant pump section allows charge to be placed onto the high voltage node without removing charge due to failure of one of the sections. With the use of auxiliary circuits, such as a voltage doubler, this hardened charge pump can be used reliably at low power supply voltage levels.