1 Introduction

High Side Switches are used and seen most commonly in automotive and industrial applications. High side switches have applications where providing power to off-board loads are essential, providing a point of disconnect between the system, supply, and the load. High-side switches can provide diagnostics during normal operation, such as load current measurement and device temperature monitoring. With load current measurements, the system is able to take measurements of the output current by correlating it with a voltage based output. With device temperature monitoring, the system is able to monitor the internal junction temperature of the switch as it increases during operation using a voltage based output. High side switches also provide diagnostics for faults that can alert when open loads, short-to-GND, loss of battery, or thermal shutdown occur. Each fault brings efficiency to the system by allowing features that help monitor down time and ways to ensure current can continue to be drawn through the switch.