Patent ID: 7273229

Claim:
An apparatus for driving an occupant-protecting airbag device mounted on a vehicle, the airbag device including an airbag and a squib to which power is supplied, the squib being deployed by igniting the squib, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of sensors each sensing a physical quantity acting on the vehicle and outputting analog signal indicative of the physical quantity; a comparator placed to directly receive at least one of the analog signals, the comparator configured to make a comparison between the at least one of the analog signals and a reference signal given to the comparator to produce a digital signal corresponding to the at least one of the analog signals a digital-signal input port configured to receive the digital signal produced by the comparator; an A/D (analog to digital) converter receiving the analog signal outputted from at least one of the plurality of sensors to cause the A/D converter to perform an A/D conversion on the analog signal to produce another digital signal; a determination unit configured to use both the another digital signal produced by the A/D converter and the digital signal received by the digital-signal input port to determine whether or not the airbag should be deployed; and an ignition circuit configured to cause the squib to be ignited to deploy the airbag when the determination unit determines that the airbag should be deployed.