US 7,525,345 B2
Swing limiter
Seong-Jin Jang, Seognam-si (Korea, Republic of)
Assigned to Samsung Electronic Co., Ltd, (Korea, Republic of)
Filed on Aug. 14, 2006, as Appl. No. 11/503,802.
Claims priority of application No. 10-2005-0075914 (KR), filed on Aug. 18, 2005.
Prior Publication US 2007/0040579 A1, Feb. 22, 2007
Int. Cl. H03K 19/094 (2006.01); H03K 19/0175 (2006.01)
U.S. Cl. 326—83  [327/530] 25 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A swing limiter, comprising:
a logic circuit including at least one first pull-up transistor and at least one pull-down transistor which are serially connected between a first node and a first power voltage and receive at least one input signal to generate an output signal, respectively;
a second pull-up transistor connected between a second power voltage and the first node and causing a voltage of the first node to have a voltage level obtained by subtracting a voltage which is less than a threshold voltage thereof from the second power voltage in response to a control voltage; and
a control voltage generator connected between a high voltage which is higher than the second power voltage and a reference voltage which is lower than the high voltage and generating the substantially constant control voltage between the high voltage and the reference voltage, wherein the control voltage generator includes:
first and second resistors and an NMOS transistor having a diode configuration which are serially connected between the high voltage and the reference voltage;
a comparator for comparing a voltage between the first and second resistors to the control voltage to generate a comparison signal; and
a PMOS transistor in which driving ability varies to generate the control voltage in response to the comparison signal,
wherein the NMOS transistor having a diode configuration has a threshold voltage which changes when the threshold voltage of the second pull-up transistor changes and generates the voltage of the second node between the first and second resistors as the control voltage.