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:
Jul. 04, 2017
Filed:
Mar. 11, 2016
Sandisk Technologies Llc, Milpitas, CA (US);
Jonathan Huynh, San Jose, CA (US);
Trung Pham, Fremont, CA (US);
Sung-en Wang, San Jose, CA (US);
Jongmin Park, Cupertino, CA (US);
SANDISK TECHNOLOGIES LLC, Plano, TX (US);
Abstract
Techniques are presented for determining current levels based on the behavior of a charge pump system while driving a load under regulation. Rather than diving the load directly, a fixed pump output voltage is used to supply a step-down regulator, which it turn drives the load at the selected voltage. While driving the load under regulation, the number of pump clocks during a set interval is counted. This can be compared to a reference that can be obtained, for example, from the numbers of cycles needed to drive a known load current over an interval of the duration. By comparing the counts, the amount of current being drawn by the load can be determined. This technique can be applied to determining leakage from circuit elements, such as word lines in a non-volatile memory.