摘要 |
An internal voltage regulator in an integrated circuit device is always active upon initial start-up and/or power-on-reset operations. The internal voltage regulator protects the low voltage core logic circuits of the integrated circuit device from excessively high voltages that may be present in a particular application. In addition, nonvolatile memory may be part of and operational with the low voltage core logic circuits for storing device operating parameters. Therefore, the internal voltage regulator also protects the low voltage nonvolatile memory from excessive high voltages. Once the integrated circuit device has stabilized and all logic circuits therein are fully function, a bit(s) in the nonvolatile memory may be read to determine if the internal voltage regulator should remain active, e.g., how power operation with a high voltage source, or be placed into a bypass mode for low power operation when the integrated circuit device is powered by a low voltage.
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