Automotive ignition system with sparkless soft shutdown as thermal overload protection

An interface (100) for providing thermal overload protection includes a switching device (10), a temperature indicating device (Ds), a drive circuit (13) and a thermal monitoring circuit (14). The thermal monitoring circuit (14) is coupled across the temperature indicating device (Ds) and provides a shutdown signal to the drive circuit (13) when the temperature of the switching device (10) is above a predetermined temperature level as indicated by a temperature signal provided by the temperature indicating device (Ds). The drive circuit (13) responds to the shutdown signal by removing current sources and current sinks from a control terminal of the switching device (10) at which point leakage currents cause the switching device (10) to reduce a drive current to an inductive load (18).