The pad is the combination of a tristate driver in output and a TTL-level buffer in input. The input buffer is TTL compatible (tester, TTL chips). The pins are:
dataIn: the data from chip to be driven out.
dataOut: buffered input. Drive is about twice a standard cell inverter.
enable: when high, padtaIn; when low, pad is tristate. Defaulted to low.
pad: the bonding site, also available inside the chip as unbuffered input.
Vdd, Gnd: the unique power supply, common to chip logic and pad drivers.
The last stage of drivers can deliver about 50mA under 5V. It drives a 40pF load in a couple of ns. The drains of the n transistor (w=500m) and of the p transistor (w=1100m) are protected by guard rings and act as clamping diodes. In an experiment on a similar actual circuit, spikes of up to 1000V (from a 100pF capacitor through 2kW) did not hurt the circuit. Each pad receives power from the outside power bus (the double decker) and passes some of it to the inside of the circuit.
This unique signal pad can be used as
- I/O: use dataIn, enable, and dataOut or pad
- output tristate: use dataIn and enable, ignore dataOut and pad
- output: tie enable to Vdd, use dataIn, ignore dataOut and pad
- input only: tie enable to Gnd and dataIn to either power supply, use dataOut or pad