Apparatus and method for recovery of wasted power from differential drivers
First Claim
1. A power recovery circuit for recovering the wasted power supplied to a differential driver pair in a system through resistor loads connected to a system supply, comprising:
- a biasing control circuit having a current sensing and control element coupled to sources of the differential driver pair to bias the sources of the differential driver pair;
a start up circuit coupled to the resistor loads of the differential driver pair, the start up circuit enabled to provide an initial starting bias voltage and current to the biasing control circuit when the driver power supply is enabled; and
,a voltage regulator coupled to an output of the biasing control circuit to regulate the output supply voltage to electronic circuits;
the power recovery circuit configured for recovering wasted power from the power supplied to the differential driver pair, in the form of current and voltage available at the connected source of the differential driver pair to provide regulated power to electronic circuits.
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Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus and method for supplying power to circuits of an integrated circuit (IC) from the wasted power in low-swing high-speed differential line drivers used in the IC, is disclosed. In a high speed line driver the load resistors of the driver are connected to a power supply, either the local power supply or the receiver power supply. DC power for the driver is supplied through these resistors. A large portion of this power, supplied from the power supply is wasted in the DC set-up circuit of the differential line driver. It is proposed to use this wasted power to power selected circuits of an IC. The use of this wasted power from the drivers for powering the circuits reduces the overall power dissipation of the system.
58 Citations
22 Claims
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1. A power recovery circuit for recovering the wasted power supplied to a differential driver pair in a system through resistor loads connected to a system supply, comprising:
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a biasing control circuit having a current sensing and control element coupled to sources of the differential driver pair to bias the sources of the differential driver pair; a start up circuit coupled to the resistor loads of the differential driver pair, the start up circuit enabled to provide an initial starting bias voltage and current to the biasing control circuit when the driver power supply is enabled; and
,a voltage regulator coupled to an output of the biasing control circuit to regulate the output supply voltage to electronic circuits; the power recovery circuit configured for recovering wasted power from the power supplied to the differential driver pair, in the form of current and voltage available at the connected source of the differential driver pair to provide regulated power to electronic circuits. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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13. A method for powering a part of an electronic circuit from at least a portion of wasted power recovered from differential drivers, the method comprising:
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recovering the wasted power; regulating the recovered power; and
,supplying the regulated power as voltage and current output to power at least part of the electronic circuit. - View Dependent Claims (14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A power recovery and supply method for recovering and using wasted power from DC coupled output drivers of a TMDS comprising:
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recovering the wasted power of the DC coupled output drivers using a power recovery circuit; regulating the recovered power using a voltage regulator; and
,supplying the regulated power as voltage and current outputs to power at least a portion of the circuits of the system. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22)
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Specification