Abstract: A rotatable surgical instrument having a protective hood with articulating bendable distal end is provided to improve and enable various orthopedic surgical procedures such as arthroscopy. The protective hood surrounds the surgical tool bit exposing only a portion of the tool bit for removing bone or soft tissue material and protects the nerve from the surgical tool bit. The protective hood can be controllably rotated from the instrument's hand piece to control the orientation of the attack angle of the surgical tool bit. Additionally, the bending of the distal end of the instrument can be controlled from the hand piece.

Abstract: A rotatable surgical instrument having a protective hood with articulating bendable distal end is provided to improve and enable various orthopedic surgical procedures such as arthroscopy. The protective hood surrounds the surgical tool bit exposing only a portion of the tool bit for removing bone or soft tissue material and protects the nerve from the surgical tool bit. The protective hood can be controllably rotated from the instrument's hand piece to control the orientation of the attack angle of the surgical tool bit. Additionally, the bending of the distal end of the instrument can be controlled from the hand piece.

Abstract: A rotatable surgical burr (100, 200, 300, 500) having a protective hood (120, 220, 320, 520, 620, 720) with a dissecting foot plate (119, 219, 319, 519, 619, 719) is provided to improve and enable various spinal decompression procedures. The surgical burr's protective hood has a dissecting foot plate that may be shaped to resemble a curette, a Woodson, or other appropriate dissecting tools to allow insertion of the tool between the spinal nerve and the compressing bone. The protective hood surrounds the burr bit (130, 230, 530) exposing only a portion of the burr bit for burring of the offending bone and protects the nerve from the burr tip. The instrument may also be configured with a soft tissue resecting tip (330) for soft tissue resection.

Abstract: Integrated circuit logic chips often oscillate during testing because the large unbypassed inductance of the test fixture causes off-chip driver switching noise to be fed back to the logic chip power supply. Oscillation may be prevented by adding an inhibit receiver and an off-chip driver inhibit network to the logic chip. The off-chip driver inhibit network provides a fan out path from the inhibit receiver to each off-chip driver. In response to an inhibit signal applied to the inhibit receiver, the inhibit network forces each of the off-chip drivers to the same logical state, the logic state being the natural logic state assumed by the off-chip drivers upon initial application of power to the chip. The driver inhibit receiver and inhibit network are employed to prevent oscillation at chip power-on, during driver and receiver parametric testing and during input test pattern tests.

Abstract: A rotatable surgical instrument having a protective hood with articulating bendable distal end is provided to improve and enable various orthopedic surgical procedures such as arthroscopy. The protective hood surrounds the surgical tool bit exposing only a portion of the tool bit for removing bone or soft tissue material and protects the nerve from the surgical tool bit. The protective hood can be controllably rotated from the instrument's hand piece to control the orientation of the attack angle of the surgical tool bit. Additionally, the bending of the distal end of the instrument can be controlled from the hand piece.

Abstract: A rotatable surgical burr (100, 200, 300, 500) having a protective hood (120, 220, 320, 520, 620, 720) with a dissecting foot plate (119, 219, 319, 519, 619, 719) is provided to improve and enable various spinal decompression procedures. The surgical burr's protective hood has a dissecting foot plate that may be shaped to resemble a curette, a Woodson, or other appropriate dissecting tools to allow insertion of the tool between the spinal nerve and the compressing bone. The protective hood surrounds the burr bit (130, 230, 530) exposing only a portion of the burr bit for burring of the offending bone and protects the nerve from the burr tip. The instrument may also be configured with a soft tissue resecting tip (330) for soft tissue resection.