75 results about "Ground bounce" patented technology

A wireless broadband communications system that can transmit signals over communications links with multiple modes of diversity, thereby allowing signals having very low correlation to propagate over the link along multiple orthogonal paths. The system can be implemented as a non-line-of-sight (NLOS) system or a line-of-sight (LOS) system. The NLOS system employs orthogonal frequency division modulation (OFDM) waveforms to reduce multi-path interference and frequency selective fading, adaptive modulation to assure high data rates in the presence of channel variability, and spectrum management to achieve increased data throughput and link availability. The LOS system employs space-time coding and spatial and polarization diversity to minimize ground bounce nulls. The system achieves levels of link availability, data throughput, and system performance that have heretofore been unattainable in wireless broadband communications systems.

Methods and circuitry for reducing ground bounce and VCC sag effects in integrated circuit (“IC”) devices is provided. In particular, a via-programmable design for I/O circuitry in IC devices is provided. The via-programmable I/O circuitry is used to disconnect I/O pin driver circuitry from and create a substantially direct connection between unused I/O pins and the ground and/or VCC signals of an IC device to reduce ground bounce and VCC sag, respectively.

A semiconductor integrated circuit including a non-abrupt switching mechanism for a sleep transistor of a power gate structure to reduce ground bounce is provided. The semiconductor integrated circuit comprises a supply voltage line; a ground voltage line; a virtual ground voltage line; a logic circuit coupled to the supply voltage line and the virtual ground voltage line; at least one sleep transistor for controlling current flow to the logic circuit, the sleep transistor being coupled to the virtual ground voltage line and the ground voltage line; and a non-abrupt switching circuit for sequentially controlling the sleep transistor. The switching mechanism reduces the magnitude of voltage glitches on the power and ground rails as well as the minimum time required to stabilize power and ground.

A new power gating structure with robust data retention capability using only one single double-gate device to provide both power gating switch and virtual supply/ground diode clamp functions. The scheme reduces the transistor count, area, and capacitance of the power gating structure, thus improving circuit performance, power, and leakage. The scheme is compared with the conventional power gating structure via mixed-mode physics-based two-dimensional numerical simulations. Analysis of virtual supply/ground bounce for the proposed scheme is also presented.

A semiconductor integrated circuit device is provided which comprises a semiconductor chip having wire bonding pads and a package encapsulating the semiconductor chip and connected via bonding wires to the wire bonding pads, wherein wire bonding pads on the semiconductor chip are arranged in two rows in a staggered manner along a periphery of the semiconductor chip, and of the wire bonding pads, power supply pads are arranged in a rear row located close to a semiconductor integrated circuit unit as an active area on the semiconductor chip and in a front row, only signal pads are arranged. Because the power supply pads are provided in the rear row, the line width of a power supply line led out from each power supply pad can be made equal to the width of the pad, thus reducing the impedance of the connection circuit between the semiconductor chip and the package, and suppressing generation of radiation noise, ground bounce and so on.

In order to further develop a circuit arrangement (100), in particular to a phase-locked loop for sub-clock or sub-pixel accurate phase-measurement and phase-generation, as well as a corresponding method in such way that no clock multiplier phase-locked loop is to be provided behind the time-to-digital converter and that neither an analog delay line nor a signal divider unit is to be provided between the digital ramp oscillator or discrete time oscillator and the digital-to-time converter, wherein less analog circuitry is susceptible for noise and for ground bounce in the digital environment, it is proposed to provide at least one phase measurement unit (10); - at least one loop filter unit (40; 40') being provided with at least one output signal (delta-phi) of at least one phase detector unit (30); at least one digital ramp oscillator unit or discrete time oscillator unit (50; 50') being provided with at least one output signal, in particular with at least one increment (inc), of the loop filter unit (40; 40'), the status signal (dto-status) of at least one register unit (54; 54') of the digital ramp oscillator unit or discrete time oscillator unit (50; 50') being fed back as input signal to the phase detector unit (30); and at least one digital-to-time converter unit (60, 62; 60', 62') being provided with at least one output signal (dto-co) of the digital ramp oscillator unit or discrete time oscillator unit (50; 50') and generating at least one output signal (hoi, ho2).

A radiation-hardened reference circuit includes a precision voltage reference circuit for generating a current-controlling voltage at first and second terminals, a driver circuit for receiving the current-controlling voltage at first and second terminals and for generating an output reference voltage, and a differential sampling circuit having first and second input terminals coupled to the first and second terminals of the voltage reference circuit, and first and second output terminals coupled to the first and second terminals of the driver circuit.

The invention relates to a power plane system for suppressing ground bounce noise. The power plane system of the invention comprises a substrate, a power layer and a ground layer. The power layer comprises a plurality of metal units. There is a distance between two adjacent metal units. A plurality of bridges is used for connecting the metal units. The ground layer has a grounding metal plate. According to the invention, when the ground bounce noise occurs, the metal units can broaden the stop-band bandwidth. Therefore, the signals in the stop-band hardly are transmitted so as to suppress the ground bounce noise, and the high frequency ground bounce noise and the electromagnetic radiation can be suppressed efficiently.

A test circuit and method for measuring power supply integrity is provided. The circuit may be incorporated on-chip and is small enough to be integrated many times across the surface of the die for measuring integrity parameters at several locations on the chip. The circuit instantaneously measures, e.g., the rail voltage of a power supply, which may be fluctuating at the time of measurement. In addition, the circuit isolates itself from all chip power rails for the duration of the measurement, thereby eliminating any influence of external noise on the measurement. A storage capacitor is charged up to full power rail voltage for powering up a comparator. Then, the comparator is isolated from the power rails and the measurements are taken. Based upon the measurements, certain power supply integrity parameters are quantified including ground bounce and power droop.

A method for testing signals of integrated circuits (ICs). According to the invention, a first IC chip successively drives a number of test patterns one at a time. At the receiving end, a second IC chip latches in the test patterns one by one. Meanwhile, the second IC chip determines whether a currently latched test pattern is correct or not. If it is incorrect and at least an error bit occurs, depending on the type of the test patterns, the second IC chip indicates that there exists ground bounce or power bounce in a signal trace corresponding to the error bit.

A driver structure for an I/O buffer circuit is disclosed. The driver structure includes a pre-push-pull driver and a post-push-pull driver. A delay circuit along is connected in series between the input signals of the pre-push-pull driver and the post-push-pull driver. After a delay time following a transition of the input signal, the circuit operation of the post-push-pull driver is turned off before the amplitude of the output signal reaches its maximum overshooting. This changes the output conductivity to inhibit the overshooting in the output signal, preventing power bounce and ground bounce at the receiving end.

A CMOS output buffer uses feedback from a ground node to reduce ground bounce by utilizing a tolerable ground bounce limit, making it less sensitive to operating conditions and processing parameters. An input to the NMOS device of the output buffer is provided by the output of a control element which receives a first input from a pre-driver and a second input (i.e., the feedback) from the ground node.

Methods and apparatus for changing the timing of memory requests in a graphics system. Reading data from memory in a graphics system causes ground bounce and other electrical noise. The resulting ground bounce may be undesirably synchronized with a video retrace signal sent to a display, and may therefore cause visible artifacts. Embodiments of the present invention shift requests made by one or more clients by a duration or durations that vary with time, thereby changing the timing of the data reads from memory. The requests may be shifted by a different duration for each memory request, for each frame, or multiples of requests or frames. The durations may be random, pseudo-random, or determined by another algorithm, and they may advance or delay the requests. By making the ground bounce and other noise asynchronous with the video retrace signal, these artifacts are reduced or eliminated.

The invention discloses a power switch driver, an IC chip and a DC-DC converter, for lowering ground bounce of a switch power source and for lowering impedance from the gate of a power switch to the power source or the ground when the power switch is switched off while ensuring a low opening speed of the power switch so as to prevent instant-on of the power switch through coupling of a parasitic capacitor. The power switch driver provided by the invention comprises an N-channel metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor NMOS for controlling a P-type power switch, and a P-channel metal oxide semiconductor field effect transistor PMOS for controlling an N-type power switch, and also includes a first resistor connected with source of the NMOS, and a second resistor connected with source of the PMOS.

A simulation model is provided for flip-chip BGAs to help engineers determine the effects of IC package components. The simulation model includes a bump model, a package planes model, a package bypass capacitor model, a ball model and a PCB model. The simulation model in particular includes resistors, inductors, capacitors and transmission lines to simulate the electrical interaction between signal conductors, power/ground planes, vias and balls that exist in a flip-chip ball grid array (BGA) package. The simulation model helps engineers understand actual physical effects of flip-chip and IC package interactions, as well as the impact of the effects of power supply droop, ground bounce and crosstalk between adjacent signals, not only on the IC package level, but at the computer system level.

A system and method for enhancing ground bounce immunity of cables such as USB type-C cables. More specifically, in certain embodiments, ground bounce immunity is enhanced by making use of alternate modes of operation of cables conforming to the USB 3.1 specification to achieve a higher power over a cable that conforms to the USB 3.1 voltage drop specification requirements on the ground signal paths when the cable is operating at normal power levels (i.e., at a power level supported by the USB 3.1 specification). In certain embodiments, ground bounce immunity is enhanced by making use of alternate modes of operation of USB 3.1 type cables and standard use USB3.1 power delivery negotiation protocol to allow a host and end device to negotiate higher power than what would normally conform to the USB 3.1 specification.

A method and apparatus for ground bounce and power supply bounce detection in devices have been disclosed. In one case one input to a differential amplifier is coupled to a reference voltage and another input to the differential amplifier is coupled to a measurement point and the output of the differential amplifier is coupled through a diode to a sample and hold circuit which is coupled to an analog to digital converter.

The invention provides a memory card detection circuit of a computer. The memory card detection circuit comprises a plurality of query pins through which a memory card is coupled to the computer and a plurality of latch circuits respectively coupled to each of the query pins. The latch circuits generates query signals indicating whether ground bounce occurs in the voltage of the query pins due to a voltage difference between two ends of the query pins shortly after the memory card is coupled to the computer through the query pins. The query signals identify the type of the memory card without waiting until ground bounce is resolved.

A remote sensing power supply regulator uses high impedance sensing inputs coupled internally to at least one circuit element within an integrated circuit, so as to regulate the voltages produced by the power supply to a level that maintains nominal voltage levels at the internal circuit element within the very large scale integrated circuit. The sense point can be chosen to serve one or a group of on-board load elements that are operationally sensitive to voltage droop and/or ground bounce.