Power integrated circuit drives based on HV NMOS

Abstract

This paper presents high voltage (HV) NMOS based level shifters, bootstraps and charge pumps in direct and cascaded topologies, which are highly useful to implement either power integrated circuits (PICs) high-side transistor floating drives or compact inductorless DC-DC power supplies. Monolithic solutions resorting to a unique HV NMOS switching cell are very important when standard CMOS technologies are intended to be used. In fact, these floating drives are fully CMOS compatible. Even while using a dedicated PIC technology this approach is a cost effective one. Furthermore, topologies based on a unique HV NMOS can be implemented in regular and simple geometry, thus, they are prone to be easily configured by top metal layers and to pave the way to mask configurable PICs. Simulation and experimental results obtained for a level shifter, a bootstrap and a charge pump used either as voltage multiplier or as a floating voltage source are presented and discussed. These low cost solutions are highly desirable for mobile applications power management and an efficient drive either for PICs or for intelligent devices.