Integration of a Monolithic Buck Converter Power IC and Bondwire Inductors With Ferrite Epoxy Glob Cores

Abstract

In this letter, we report a concept of integrating a monolithic buck converter power IC with in-package bondwire inductors. The power IC containing all switching devices, driver circuitry, and control logic was designed and fabricated with a standard 0.5-μm CMOS process. Mutliturn bondwires with and without ferrite epoxy glob cores are used as the filter inductor in the buck converter. A prototype system-in-package converter with an output voltage and current of 2.5 V and 120 mA was built to operate at frequencies up to 5 MHz. The power level of the prototype buck converter is scalable by increasing the size of the active power switches.