Patent ID: 7265535

Claim:
A circuit configuration for providing a diagnostic signal for a diagnosis of a power switching device for switching a load, the circuit configuration comprising: a test circuit connected to the power switching device and configured to test the power switching device and to generate error symptoms depending on the testing for characterizing error types of different priorities; a filter device connected to said test circuit, said filter device, depending on an activation signal AS to activate the power switching device, providing a validity signal for the error symptoms in each case, with the validity signal specifying a validity of the corresponding error symptom in each case; a validation device connected to said test circuit for validating a generated error symptom depending on the associated validity signal in each case and validating a validated activation signal AS, and generating therefrom a group of states and associated complementary states; and a coding device connected to said validation device for coding the states and the complementary states depending on the priorities of the error types assigned to the states and the complementary states, with a diagnostic signal being formed from the coded states and the complementary states.