3 ms·
With source/drain shorted together and tied to a data line, and the gate grounded, they might just be high resistance pull down resistors. I.e., they would rel
by pwg 10y ago
With source/drain shorted together and tied to a data line, and the gate grounded, they might just be high resistance pull down resistors. I.e., they would rely on the gate leakage current to create a high ohm resistor. Creating real resistors on silicon IC's is area expensive, so most need for real resistors is first designed around and what's left as absolutely necessary is usually created using tricks. This might be one of those tricks.
- taneq 10y agoKnowing nothing about IC or CPU design, this was my first thought. They're there to fix some weirdness that happens when they're not there, and nobody could figure out exactly why it was happening so they just left them there. Kind of like the "magic" switch on the front of the old computer case that shouldn't affect anything, but the computer crashes when it's flipped. :P Hardware is weird.
- adrianratnapala 10y agoVery high ohm resistor that. And hopefully that's not it, because the pull-down function might even me needed in a discrete board. BUt I was thinking of gate capacitance, some voodoo impedence matching (or even mismatching) to prevent trouble from some reflection somewhere. In that case, the discrete board can't be expected to have the same set of problems. But even if the transistors played