Patent ID: 7692442

Claim:
An apparatus for detecting a temperature and a current flowing from a first node to a second node of an integrated circuit area, the apparatus comprising: a set of MOS devices directly coupled in series between the first and the second nodes with a drain of each MOS device coupled to its own gate and to a source of its adjacent MOS device, and operating in a sub-threshold region of The integrated circuit area; and means for determining temperature of the sub-threshold region of the integrated circuit area by measuring a voltage difference between the first and the second nodes, wherein the voltage difference is determined by a formula of Ids≅e q(Vgs−Vt)/kT , where Ids represents drain-to-source current, q and k constants, T temperature of the set of MOS devices, Vt the threshold voltage of the set of MOS devices, and Vgs a gate-to-source voltage, and wherein the Vgs of each MOS device is smaller than the Vt of the same, such that each MOS device operates in the sub-threshold region.