Texas Instruments Incorporated
Fail-safe for shared pin

Abstract:

An integrated circuit (IC) provides an improved fail-safe signal to a circuit sharing a fail-safe pin at which the voltage can be greater than the voltage of an upper rail. The IC includes a first circuit segment that receives a first fail-safe signal and a first power-down signal and provides an intermediate signal, wherein the first fail-safe signal indicates when the voltage at the fail-safe pin is greater than the upper rail and the first power-down signal indicates when the module is powered down, and a second circuit segment connected to receive the intermediate signal and to provide the improved fail-safe signal to the module.