IO Pad Circuitry with Safety Monitoring and Control for Integrated Circuits

摘要

An input/output (IO) pad circuitry for integrated circuits (ICs) that is equipped with safety monitoring and control circuits to ensure that signals provided to/from the IO pad behave correctly. The IO pad circuitry allows monitoring of the IO pad signals, the detection of an undesired behavior, e.g., a wrong signal level or a wrong waveform. Furthermore, depending on a selected safety mode, a correction of the IO pad signals by overriding the monitored signal is further achieved. When in full safe mode, signals are provided as required, while in a partial safe mode only certain signals are provided depending on the status. A grouped safe mode allows providing a safe status to a group of IO pads using a single control. A monitoring circuitry between a plurality of input signals to an IC pad is also provided.

主权项

1. An input/output (IO) pad circuitry of an integrated circuit (IC), the IO pad circuitry comprising:
an IO pad circuit configured to receive and/or transmit at least a signal respective of the IC; monitoring circuitry connected to the IO pad circuit configured to perform error detection of at least a signal of the IO pad circuit; and correction circuitry connected to the IO pad circuit configured to override the at least a signal value respective of a predetermined safety mode.