Patent attributes
A hysteresis circuit to be produced within a receiver of a chip is shown. The hysteresis circuit is powered by an overdrive voltage (2VDD), and has a protection circuit, an inverter, and a latch. The input of the hysteresis circuit is coupled to the inverter through the protection circuit, to be transformed into an output, and the latch is coupled to the inverter for positive feedback control. The protection circuit has a first sub-circuit (coupling the input to the inverter to control the pull-up path of the inverter) biased by a first bias voltage that is lower than VDD, and a second sub-circuit (coupling the input to the inverter to control the pull-down path of the inverter) biased by a second bias voltage that is greater than VDD.