A Fully-Integrated Galvanic Isolator for Gate Drivers With Asynchronous 100/167 Mb/s ASK/FSK Full-Duplex Communication

A fully-integrated galvanic isolator for gate drivers that supports high-speed, asynchronous, full-duplex communication is presented. Data transmission from the microcontroller to the power device is achieved using amplitude-shift keying (ASK) at 100 Mb/s, while simultaneous communication in the opposite direction is implemented using frequency-shift keying (FSK) at 167 Mb/s. A delay-locked loop (DLL)-based FSK demodulator enables robust operation in a completely asynchronous communication scenario. Prototypes were fabricated in a 0.13 μm HV CMOS technology, covering an area of 2.2 mm. The system operates from a low 1.5 V supply with a total power consumption of 8.2 mW. Measured propagation delays are under 8 ns for ASK and below 4 ns for FSK at their respective maximum data rates.