the circuit shown in fig1 provides the necessary time signals for an early shutdown of the microprocessor system shown with its cmos ram memory and its battery backup . the microprocessor based product 10 is shown as including a microprocessor 12 and its associated cmos ram memory 14 . the microprocessor 12 and the cmos ram memory are supplied with the required dc power from the power supply 17 over line 16 . for the cmos ram memory this supply may be , for example , a 5 volt supply as is usually required . as shown , the microprocessor includes among other signal inputs , some of which are not shown , a signal input on line 20 which is given the name &# 34 ; transfer enable &# 34 ;. that signal is polled by the microprocessor each time it is necessary to transfer a block of data to the ram . if the transfer enable signal is high , the entire block is transferred . if that signal is low , the transfer is prevented . the cmos ram 14 includes not only an input from the microprocessor over line 22 which provides for the transfer of data from the microprocessor to the ram and from the ram to the microprocessor , but there is also included as one of the lines to the cmos ram a line 24 which is named the cmos ram enable . the signal on line 24 when low allows normal ram access and high speed operation when the ram device is connected to its normal dc supply on line 16 as derived from power supply 17 . when this signal is held high , it forces the ram into the non - addressable &# 34 ; data retention &# 34 ; mode . in that mode the supply required may be dropped to a lower dc value such as 2 volts or supplied from battery 19 , for example , instead of the 5 volts supplied on line 16 . the lower voltage is adequate to maintain data already in the ram . as shown , the circuit of fig1 consists of six cmos inverters with schmidt trigger inputs . these may , for example , be type 74c14 . these inverters are identified by the reference characters 30 - 35 . there is also provided two rc timing circuits which are shown as including the capacitors c6 and c7 . the circuit also utilizes a half - wave rectifier 40 and a low power logic gating circuit utilizing diode 42 and resistor 60 . the operation of the circuit of fig1 will be evident from the following description taken in conjunction with the timing diagram of fig2 . as shown in fig1 the primary ac power is supplied by way of transformer 44 to the power supply 17 as well as to the half - wave rectifier 40 . when the ac power is &# 34 ; on &# 34 ; the capacitor c6 is charged through rectifier 40 , which may be a 1n4004 , and resistor 48 which may be 10 ohms , so that the charge on capacitor c6 will reach about 9 volts . the resistors 50 and 52 with capacitor c6 forms an rc timing circuit whose time constant is about 30 milliseconds when the capacitor c6 has , for example , a value of 0 . 1 microfarad and resistors 50 and 52 are 100 and 220 kilohms . likewise , the resistor 54 and the capacitor c7 form an rc timing circuit with a time constant of about 20 milliseconds when the resistor 54 has a value of 220 kilohms and capacitor c7 a value of 0 . 1 microfarads . these two timing circuits are used in circuit of fig1 to stagger the timing sequence required for the signals to the microprocessor and the cmos ram . when primary ac power fails , for example , at time t 1 as shown in fig2 the voltage on capacitor c6 decays as shown in fig2 bringing the inverter 30 through its threshold and consequently causing the transfer enable signal on line 20 to go low at time t 2 due to the operation of the intervening inverters 30 , 31 , 32 , and 33 in conjunction with the resistor 60 which may , for example , have a value of 100 kilohms . as mentioned , the transfer enable signal going low will prevent the microprocessor 12 from making any data transfers although it will not prevent the completion of any transfers already initiated . approximately 20 milliseconds after the transfer enable signal on line 20 has gone low , the cmos ram enable signal goes high due to the timing provided by the resistor 54 and capacitor c7 . thus , the cmos ram enable signal goes high at time t 3 as shown in fig2 in response to the output signal from the inverter 34 . the presence of the cmos ram enable signal on line 24 at time t 3 places the ram in standby mode by connecting it to operate from battery 19 and it will be noted that this sequence is completed before the dc supply to the ram , as shown in fig2 starts to decay at time t 4 . the delay between t 1 and t 4 is due to the capacitors in the power supply 17 which will have sufficient charge to maintain the volage on line 16 until time t 4 . the transfer to standby for the ram is made possible by the above mentioned sequence of the transfer enable signal going low followed by the cmos ram enable signal going high . the transfer of data from the microprocessor to the ram is then prevented in addition to the placing of the ram in standby mode before any decay of the dc power supply to the ram is experienced . when ac power returns at time t 5 , as shown in fig2 the capacitor c6 is again charged to approximately 9 volts , for example , and the output signal of inverter 31 goes high . however , the transfer enable signal is held low by virtue of the voltage drop in resistor 60 due to current flow through diode 42 until capacitor c7 charges to the threshold voltage of inverter 34 which causes the cmos ram enable signal to go low which causes the output of inverter 35 to go high thus blocking current flow through resistor 60 and diode 42 . this keeps the microprocessor from writing to the ram while the ram is in a standby mode . it will thus be seen that the circuit of this invention senses a failure of its primary power almost as soon as it occurs and allows adequate time for an early shutdown to occur before the dc supply to the memory has decayed instead of waiting until the dc starts to decay as is the case with the prior art . at the time when the dc to the ram starts to decay it is already too late to begin a shutdown sequence which will preserve data integrity under all conditions .