Fully Integrated High-Voltage Level Shifts and Drivers for Buck Converters

A novel scheme of fully integrated high-voltage level-shift and driver without off-chip components is presented. High-voltage high-speed level-shift and gate drivers are developed to achieve nanosecond propagation delay with small solution size. Without external power supply and off-chip components, the proposed gate driver possesses strong driving capability for both low side and high side power MOSFETs. By removing capacitors on power rail and floating power rail, the chip and solution size are minimized. The scheme is implemented in a 0.35 mu m high voltage bipolar-CMOS-DMOS (BCD) process. Simulation and test results show the proposed fully integrated level shifts and drivers work well in a 15V buck converter.