High-voltage analog circuit pulser and pulse generator discharge circuit

Inventors

Athos, Brian G. • Uecker, Darrin R. • Xiao, Shu

Assignees

Pulse Biosciences Inc

Abstract

A pulse generator discharge circuit is disclosed. The circuit includes one or more discharge stages, each discharge stage including a plurality of control input terminals. The circuit also includes first and second discharge terminals, and a plurality of serially connected switches electrically connected between the first and second discharge terminals, where a conductive state of each of the switches is controlled by a control signal. The circuit also includes a plurality of inductive elements configured to generate the control signals for the serially connected switches, where each inductive element is configured to generate a control signal for one of the serially connected switches in response to one or more input signals at one or more of the control input terminals, and where each of the serially connected switches is configured to receive a control signal from a respective one of the inductive elements.

Core Innovation

The invention provides a high voltage pulse generator having a driver circuit configured to generate driving signal pulses and a pulse generator stage comprising a plurality of switches connected in series with a capacitive element coupled to the plurality of switches. A switch driver is configured to generate control signal pulses for switching the plurality of switches in response to the driving signal pulses. The switch driver input is coupled to an output port of the driver circuit, and the switch driver output port is coupled to a respective switch of the plurality of switches.

The invention further specifies that the input port of the switch driver is coupled to the output port of the switch driver through a transformer. In the disclosed nsPEF generator architecture, control and trigger pulses are produced by driver circuits using transformer coupling to provide switching of serial switch elements for delivering nsPEF pulses to electrodes. Timing control is described in correspondence with pulse-duration relationships between the control and trigger pulses and the resulting output pulses.

The disclosure includes selectively operated pulse-generator discharge circuit stages that use one or more discharge stages with control input terminals and first and second discharge terminals. Multiple serially connected switches are provided, with conductive state controlled by control signals generated for each switch by inductive transformer elements. Safety operation is described with discharge behavior that reduces residual voltage after pulsing, including discharging capacitors after pulsing to low residual voltage.

Multiple discharge circuit stage embodiments are described, including comparator-controlled multi-switch discharge shorting of output terminals and alternative approaches using passive bleed and RC and LED and phototransistor concepts, as well as transformer-coupled discharge triggering. The disclosure also describes related architecture for nsPEF pulse generation using capacitor stages including Marx-switch-stack hybrid circuit configurations.

Claims Coverage

The partial content provides one independent claim (clm-00001). The core inventive coverage centers on a high voltage pulse generator with series-connected switches driven by control signal pulses, with transformer coupling between driver outputs and switch-driver inputs and outputs.

Across the provided independent-claim set, the inventive concept is captured by transformer coupling for the switch-driver control path combined with a pulse generator stage that switches a serial switch stack using a capacitive element under control signal pulses produced in response to driving signal pulses.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications