Patent 7474570 was granted and assigned to Sanyo on January, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A semiconductor device capable of improving the accuracy determines whether a prescribed input potential is higher or lower than a reference potential. This semiconductor device comprises first capacitance unit and second capacitance unit having different ON- and OFF-state capacitances. The semiconductor device changes the potential of a first electrode of the first capacitance unit and the potential of a first electrode of the second capacitance unit from a first potential to a second potential thereby enlarging the difference between a potential input in a second electrode of the first capacitance unit and a potential input in a second electrode of the second capacitance unit and comparing the potential input in the second electrode of the first capacitance unit and the potential input in the second electrode of the second capacitance unit with each other.