Semiconductor device and electric power control apparatus

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10224921-B2
Application number	US-201715444876-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 28, 2017
Priority date	Jul 15, 2015
Publication date	Mar 5, 2019
Grant date	Mar 5, 2019

Abstract

A driver IC includes a ring-shaped termination area, and a first area and a second area that are respectively arranged outside and inside the termination area on a layout. A sense MOS that is arranged between a floating terminal and a first sense node and is driven at a power supply voltage is formed in the termination area. A fault detection circuit that detects presence of a fault when a voltage of the first sense node is higher than a decision voltage that has been determined in advance in a period of time that a low side driver is driving a low side transistor into an ON state is formed in the first area.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A semiconductor device comprising:
a floating terminal configured to be coupled to a floating voltage source;
a first circuit including a low side driver, the first circuit being configured to operate based on a first power supply voltage and a reference voltage;
a second circuit including a high side driver, the second circuit being configured to operate based on a second power supply voltage and a voltage of the floating terminal;
a first sense MOS transistor coupled between the floating terminal and a first sense node, a gate of the first sense MOS transistor being configured to receive the first power supply voltage; and
a fault detection circuit configured to detect that a voltage of the first sense node exceeds a first decision voltage when the low side driver is activated,
wherein the first sense MOS transistor clamps the voltage of the first sense node to a predetermined voltage when the voltage of the floating terminal exceeds the predetermined voltage.

2. The semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein the first sense MOS transistor is depletion type.

3. The semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein the fault detection circuit includes:
a filter circuit configured to smooth the voltage of the first sense node; and
a first comparator circuit configured to compare an output voltage of the filter circuit with the first decision voltage.

4. The semiconductor device according to claim 1 , wherein the fault detection circuit is further configured to detect that the voltage of the first sense node falls below a second decision voltage when the low side driver is inactivated and the high side driver is activated.

Assignees

• Renesas Electronics Corp

Inventors

• Kanda Ryo
• Yamazaki Koichi
• Kuroiwa Hiroshi
• Maeda Masatoshi
• Toda Tetsu

Classifications

• H10W90/756

  between a chip and a stacked lead frame, conducting package substrate or heat sink · CPC title

• H10W90/753

  between laterally-adjacent chips · CPC title

• H10W72/07552

  changes in structures or sizes · CPC title

• H10W72/932

  Plan-view shape, i.e. in top view · CPC title

• H10W72/926

  Multiple bond pads having different sizes · CPC title