Michael F Pate

US Patent:

20110204965, Aug 25, 2011

Filed:

Feb 23, 2010

Appl. No.:

12/710682

Inventors:

Cetin Kaya - Plano TX, US
Michael Pate - Allen TX, US

Assignee:

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INCORPORATED - Dallas TX

International Classification:

G05F 3/02
H01L 29/78
G01R 19/00
H03H 11/24

US Classification:

327543, 257 48, 324 7611, 327581, 257E29256

Abstract:

These various embodiments pertain to an FET having a plurality of fingers as correspond to the FET's source and drain. A first conductive lead electrically couples to a given one of this plurality of fingers while a second conductive lead electrically couples as well to this same given finger. A measurement component connects to these first and second conductive leads to measure at least one electrical parameter (such as voltage). By one approach, the first and second conductive leads physically connect to opposing ends of the given finger. These teachings will also accommodate providing a control component that is responsive to the measurement component to facilitate automatically controlling at least one operating state of the FET as a function, at least in part, of the measured electrical parameter.