Patent ID: 8750020

Claim:
A method of suppressing propagation of leakage current in an array of switching devices, comprising: providing a first switching device, a second switching device, a third switching device, and a fourth switching device, each of the first switching device, the second switching device and the third switching device being at an ON low resistance state, the fourth switching device being at an OFF high resistance state; and applying a first voltage to the fourth switching device, the first voltage causing a current to flow at least in the first switching device, the second switching device and the third switching device, and suppressing the current by using a dielectric breakdown element integrally connected to a switching element within each of the first switching device, second switching device, third switching device and the fourth switching device, the dielectric breakdown element being characterized by a breakdown voltage less than the first voltage, the dielectric element being serially connected to respective switching elements in each of the first switching device, second switching device, third switching device, and the fourth switching device.