Fully Integrated Isolated DC-DC Converter Using

Micro-Transformers
Baoxing Chen
Analog Devices Inc.
804 Woburn Street
Wilmington, MA 01887 USA

Abstract-We demonstrated a fully integrated isolated dc-dc
converter using coreless micro-transformers. The transformers
are switched resonantly at 170 MHz to achieve efficient energy
transfer while the energy regulation is realized through a 500
KHz PWM feedback signal which controls the duty cycle that
this 170 MHz resonant action is left on. Both the transformer
switches and Schottky diodes used for rectification are
implemented on chip. 5kV isolation is achieved through 20m
thick polyimide layers sandwiched in between the primary coils
and the secondary coils. The feedback PWM signal is transmitted
across isolation barrier with on-chip transformers also through
appropriate encoding and decoding. The converter packaged in a
16L Small-Outline Integrated Circuit (SOIC) is measured to
deliver 0.5W isolated power at 33% efficiency.
I. INTRODUCTION
Integration of power electronics components has attracted a
lot of research interest recently [1]. There is a growing
demand of portable electronics and handheld devices, and
miniaturization of power modules becomes highly desirable.
However, integrated components such as inductors,
transformers, switches and diodes have large and sometime
prohibitive parasitic resistance. The integrated inductors and
transformers are desired to operate at high frequency to have
higher quality factor, but there are a few main difficulties to
overcome to switch at high frequency. First, the switching loss
begins to dominate, so some form of resonant switching is
needed. Second, the reverse recovery for the rectifying diodes
becomes appreciable. Last, the regulation is difficult to obtain
at high frequency. A Vernier-regulated architecture has been
proposed to address some of these difficulties for high
frequency dc-dc power conversion, where energy conversion
and regulation function are partitioned [2].
For isolated dc-dc converter, isolated transformers would be
needed. There would be magnetic core loss and degradation of
magnetization that would limit the high frequency operation.
Furthermore, the magnetic core in the system could
compromise the isolation rating of the transformer. With these
limitations for high frequency operation due to magnetic core
in mind, here we propose a dc-dc converter using coreless
micro-transformers. Coreless PCB transformers have been
proposed for using in an isolated dc-dc converter [3], 67%
transformer efficiency has been reported. However, they are
not compatible with state of art integrated circuit (IC) process
and this prevents its integration with other power components.
A fully integrated dc-dc converter is made possible by
integrating the switching components and rectification devices
with coreless on chip transformers. Batching processing nature
of the IC process has the potential to reduce the cost of
individual power components. Moreover, mature IC
techniques produce high quality insulation layers, and
integrated dc-dc converters typically have superior isolation
rating and higher reliability than those with discrete
transformers.
II. CONVERTER ARCHITECTURE
The fully integrated converter architecture is shown in Fig.
1. Two 0.6m high voltage CMOS switches implemented in a
cross-coupled configuration together with the transformer
form sustaining oscillation. The transformer with its center
tape connected to VDD is switched resonantly at 170MHz to
achieve efficient energy transfer. The integrated Schottky
diodes were used as rectification devices. These diodes turn on
and recover fast enough for 170 MHz rectification. The diodes
need to be sized such that they stay in Schottky region during
rectification. To improve efficiency with varying load and
maintain voltage regulation, a feedback signal transformer was
used. A 500 KHz feedback signal would turn on/off the
resonant transformer switching action instead of controlling
each transformer switch directly. This approach essentially
separates the energy regulation from energy conversion
allowing optimized power transfer and maintaining regulation.
The power device sizes including transformers can be
optimized by studying the coupled resonator model as shown
in Fig. 2. The input impedance, voltage transfer function and
efficiency can be derived. The input capacitance is dominated
by the drain capacitance of the MOS switches while the output
Figure 1. Power Transfer Block Diagram

978-1-4244-1874-9/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE 335

 Figure 2. Transformer Coupled Resonator
capacitance is mainly that from rectification diodes. To be
noted is that the coupled resonator has two resonating modes,
one at high efficiency and one at low frequency. If the two
resonators are symmetric, the resonating frequencies i can be
simplified as in (1) while the input impedance Zin(i), where
i=1,2, can be simplified as in (2),
12 =
1
; 22 =
1 (1)
( L + M )C ( L M )C
L+M LM
Z in (1 ) = ; Z in (2 ) = ; (2)
2 rC 2 rC
where L is the self inductance, and r is the serial resistance for
the spirals while M is the mutual inductance between the
primary and secondary spirals. Clearly the resonating mode at
low frequency 1 has high input impedance and high
efficiency. To ensure that the converter operates in the
efficient mode, we design such that the two modes are widely
separated, typically 2 > 21. This is achievable with coupling
coefficient bigger than 0.6.
A modified Proportional plus Integral (PI) controller is used
to achieve high output accuracy and some immunity to high
frequency noise. The two time constants are chosen to yield
good phase margin at cross-over frequency. All the
compensation elements were implemented on chip. The PWM
is created by comparing the output from the error amplifier to
the output from a constant frequency ramp waveform
generator. The differential inputs for the error amplifier are the
4:1 divided output voltage and a 1.25 reference voltage
generated through on chip bandgap reference generator.
The transfer of the feedback signal is realized through
transmitting short pulses around 1nS wide across the
transformers with two consecutive short pulses to indicate a
leading edge and a single short pulse as a falling edge. Fig. 3
shows the signal transfer block diagram. A non-retriggerable
mono-stable at the secondary generates detection pulses. If
two pulses are detected, the output is set to High. On the other
hand, if a single pulse is detected, the output is set to Low. An
input filter helps to increase noise immunity. The DC
correctness is guaranteed by refresh signals sent into the
transformers when no signal edges are detected for about 1S.
If the input is high, two consecutive short pulses are generated
as refresh pulses and if the input is low, refresh of a single
short pulse is generated. To complement the refresh circuit on
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Figure 3. Feedback Signal Transfer Block Diagram
the driver side, a watchdog is implemented in the receiver to
make sure the output is at a fail-safe state when no refresh
pulses are detected.
The on-chip power transformers are implemented as stacked
spirals and their cross-section is shown in Fig. 4. 6m thick
plated Au was used for both the top spirals and bottom spirals.
The 20m thick cured polyimide provides isolation better than
5kV. Polyimide was chosen as the material for insulating
layers because it provides large breakdown strength, high
thermal and mechanical stability, excellent chemical
resistance, good ESD performance and low relative
permittivity. The polyimide films as deposited on wafer level
provide well-controlled thickness and high structural quality.
The commercial polyimide films are available in photo-resist
form, so they could be easily patterned by photolithography
process and then hard cured in its final form through a thermal
curing process. The cured polyimide films used in these
devices have dielectric breakdown strength over 400V/m.
With a total thickness of 20m between coils, the polyimide
layers enable the devices to be able to survive over 8kV
instantaneous ac voltage. The polyimide properties are
summarized in table 1. Because deposited polyimide films are
free of voids and do not suffer from corona discharge, these
devices also exhibit good aging behavior and work well under
continuous ac voltages or dc voltages. Besides good high
voltage performance, polyimide has excellent ESD
performance. During energy limited ESD events, the polymer
could absorb some of the charge to form stable radicals to
interrupt the avalanche process and it appears that some of the
Figure 4. Transformer Structure
 TABLE I
POLYIMIDE PROPERTIES
Weight Loss =5% at T= ( ) 500
CTE (ppm) 40~50
Tensile Strength (Mpa) >120
Mechanical Elongation (%) >30
Youngs Modulus (Gpa) 3.3
Electrical Dielectric constant 3.3
Moisture Uptake (%) 0.8
Breakdown Voltage >400V/m
charge is bleed away. The devices can typically handle over
15kV ESD stresses. Other dielectric materials such as oxide
will not have this ESD tolerant characteristic and they will go
into avalanche once the ESD voltage level is over its dielectric
strength even though the energy can be very small. The
polyimide we use has also very high thermal stability, its
weight loss temperature is over 5000C and its glass transition
temperature is about 2600C. The polyimide has also high
mechanical stability, it has a tensile strength over 120MPa and
it has a high elastic elongation of over 30%. In spite of its high
elongation, polyimide does not deform easily, its Youngs
Modulus is about 3.3Gpa. The polyimide has excellent
chemical resistance. That is why it has been widely used for
insulation coatings for the high voltage cables. High chemical
resistance also helps to facilitate IC processing on top of
polyimide layers, for example, Au plating on top of polyimide
in our case. The polyimide has a dielectric constant of 3.3.
With small diameter coils and thick polyimide layers between
the coils, these devices have desirable small capacitance
across isolation barrier.
Figure 5 shows the complete converter chips inside a 16L
SOIC package. The left chip has the CMOS switches and the
right chip has the rectification diodes and converter controller.
The transformer chips sit in the middle. This prototype has the
Figure 5. Converter Snapshot
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transformers on separate chips, but in principle, the
transformers can be put on same chips for the MOS switches
or Schottky diodes. The transformer process is compatible
with standard CMOS processes. For the top transformer chip,
the two larger transformers are power transformers while the
small transformer is for transmitting the feedback PWM signal.
The bottom half of the snap shot including the bottom
transformer chips holds additional integrated isolation
functions. The integration of the isolated dc-dc converter
provides unprecedented possibilities for functional integration
that can dramatically reduce the complexity, size and total cost
of the isolated system.
III. MEASUREMENT RESULTS
The packaged converter as shown in Fig. 5 was tested. The
converter provides an isolated DC output at 5V for up to
100mA. It has good supply regulation and load regulation.
The transient response is also studied. Fig. 6 shows some
operation waveforms. The right waveforms are the zoomed in
version of those to the left and the output voltage is offset at
5V for the right waveforms so that we can examine the
transformer switching frequency by looking at the high
frequency output supply noises. Ch. 1 is the PWM signal, Ch.
2 is the input supply and Ch. 3 is the isolated supply output.
As we can see, the PWM frequency is about 446 kHz while
the transformer switching frequency is about 170 MHz. Since
we use full wave rectification, the output supply noise
frequency is twice the switching frequency. The converter
efficiency is about 33% at full load it remains relatively
constant all the way up to about 30% of the load and then
starts to drop below 30% efficiency for load under 20mA. The
load dependence for the converter efficiency is shown in Fig.
7. The main sources of the loss are the MOS switches, the
transformers and the Schottky diodes. The transformer itself
has much higher efficiency and it is estimated to be better than
70%. The efficiency can be improved further by choosing
processes with MOS switches with less drain capacitance and
Schottky diodes with smaller junction capacitance. The
smaller capacitance will allow the operation of the converter
Figure 6. Converter Waveforms
 35
integration provides possibilities for total isolation system
integration and has huge potential to reduce total system
complexity and cost while improving the system reliability.
While the converter efficiency is only 33%, it is good enough
Efficiency %

for many low power applications and there is a lot of room for
30 future improvement.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank iCoupler team members, especially
Susan Li, Flow Zhao, Alice Wang, Alice Huang, Angelo
25
Pagkalawangan and Ronn Kliger for their contributions.
0 20 40 60 80 100
Output Load Current (mA) REFERENCES
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IV. CONCLUSION 2000.

In Summary, we have demonstrated for the first time the fully

integrated isolated dc-dc converter in a SOIC. The power

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