Patent ID: 7098510

Claim:
A multifinger element having a plurality of fingers connected in parallel with one another between an input wiring to which a surge current is input and a reference-potential wiring to which a reference potential is applied, wherein said plurality of fingers are grouped into first to nth (where n represents a natural number of 2 or greater) units of a plurality of fingers; each finger includes: a transistor having a drain connected to the input wiring; and a source resistor having a first end connected to a source of said transistor and a second end connected to the reference-potential wiring; the source of said transistor is connected to a gate of a transistor of another finger belonging to the same unit as that of the finger to which the first-mentioned transistor belongs; sources of at least two transistors belonging to a first unit are connected to respective ones of a source of at least one transistor belonging to a second unit and a source of at least one transistor belonging to the nth unit; sources of at least two transistors belonging to a kth [where k represents a natural number of 2 to (n−1)] unit are connected to respective ones of a source of at least one transistor belonging to a (k−1)unit and a source of at least one transistor belonging to a (k+1) th unit; and sources of at least two transistors belonging to the nth unit are connected to respective ones of a source of at least one transistor belonging to the (n−1) th unit and a source of at Least one transistor belonging to the first unit.