A Novel Floating High-Voltage Level Shifter with Pre-Storage Technique

Abstract

This paper proposes a novel floating high-voltage level shifter (FHV-LS) with the pre-storage technique for high speed and low deviation in propagation delay. With this technology, the transmission paths from input to output are optimized, and thus the propagation delay of the proposed FHV-LS is reduced to as low as the sub-nanosecond scale. To further reduce the propagation delay, a pull-up network with regulated strength is introduced to reduce the fall time, which is a crucial part of the propagation delay. In addition, a pseudosymmetrical input pair is used to improve the symmetry of FHV-LS structurally to balance between the rising and falling propagation delays. Moreover, a start-up circuit is developed to initialize the output state of FHV-LS during the VDDH power up. The proposed FHV-LS is implemented using 0.3-µm HVCMOS technology. Post-layout simulation shows that the propagation delays and energy per transition of the proposed FHV-LS are 384 ps and 77.7 pJ @VH = 5 V, respectively. Finally, the 500-points Monte Carlo are performed to verify the performance and the stability.

New, Fast, High-Performance Level Shifter for Buck DC-DC Converter in 180nm CMOS Technology

“…To reduce power consumption and propagation delay, the design of the level shifter needs to be optimized. [3], [4], proposes a floating voltage level translator that can convert signal levels from low voltage power rail circuit domains to floating power and ground rail circuit domains with high resistance to orbital translation. Subthreshold shifters in [5] and [6], use selfdriven current limiters to detect output errors for robust voltage transitions.…”