16.7 A fully-integrated half-duplex data/power transfer system with up to 40Mb/s data rate, 23mW output power and on-chip 5kV galvanic isolation

Abstract

Galvanic isolation is becoming an essential requisite for several low-power applications, such as sensor interfaces and medical devices. In the last years, different solutions of silicon-integrated data transmission with galvanic isolation have been proposed that are based on RF links [1], capacitive couplings [2] or integrated coreless transformers [3]. As far as the power transfer is concerned, a dedicated link exploiting a discrete transformer is the typical solution. State-of-the-art devices currently adopt post-processed technologies and thick Au metals to implement the power link [4]. In this work, a fully integrated system is demonstrated for galvanically isolated power and bidirectional half-duplex data transfer by using a single integrated transformer [5].