Monolithic and static current limiter and circuit breaker

摘要

The static monolithic current limiter and circuit breaker comprises two terminals (A,K), between which there is a uni-directional current limiter (1), and a detector (2) sensing the voltage between the terminals. A switch device (3) is arranged to inhibit conduction through the current limiter when the detected voltage exceeds a given threshold. The voltage detector is formed by a potential divider (2) connected between the terminals, with its mid-point providing the output indication. This potential divider may be constructed from two MOS transistors with N-type depletion channels connected in series. The current limiter may also be an MOS transistor with an N-type depletion channel of vertical format. Alternatively this limiter may be a vertical IGBT type transistor with a depletion channel, and in yet another configuration may be a bipolar transistor used in conjunction with an N-type depletion MOS transistor.