Patent ID: 7902871

Claim:
A semiconductor device comprising an OFF-chip driver (OCD), comprising: a pull-up level shifter generating a level-shifted, first-state, data pull-up signal having a second power supply voltage level in response to first-state internal data having a first power supply voltage level, wherein the pull-up level shifter comprises a plurality of series connected pull-up logic gates receiving as power supply voltages at least one pull-up intermediate power supply voltage having at least one voltage level intermediate between the first power supply voltage level and the second power supply voltage level, the at least one pull-up intermediate power supply voltage of the pull-up logic gates having either a same voltage level or gradually increasing voltage levels; a pull-up driver pulling up output data in response to the data pull-up signal and a pull-up control signal to output first-state output data having the second power supply voltage level; a pull-down level shifter generating a level-shifted, first-state, data pull-down signal having a third power supply voltage level in response to the first-state internal data having the first power supply voltage level, the pull-down level shifter comprising a plurality of series connected pull-down logic gates receiving as power supply voltages at least one pull-down intermediate power supply voltage having at least one voltage level intermediate between the first power supply voltage level and the third power supply voltage level, the at least one pull-down intermediate power supply voltage of the pull-down logic gates having either a same voltage level or gradually increasing voltage levels; and a pull-down driver pulling down the output data in response to the data pull-down signal and a pull-down control signal to output second-state output data having a fourth power supply voltage level.