Abstract: Embodiments herein relate to a voltage converter which includes a soft switching driver for a low-side transistor which is in series with a high-side transistor to provide a desired output voltage Vx. The soft switching driver receives Vx on a feedback path and includes a clipper transistor to clip or reduce a maximum voltage of Vx to Vxsen. A restore circuit can be used to effectively add back a threshold voltage drop of the clipper transistor which would otherwise occur by holding a source of the clipper transistor at Vdrv, a gate voltage of the clipper transistor. A zero-voltage switching circuit receives Vxsen to provide an output voltage which in turn sets a control gate voltage of the low-side transistor. The low-side and high-side transistors may be GaN-based while the soft switching driver is CMOS based.

Abstract: The circuits and methods described herein provide technical solutions for technical problems facing DC-DC converters. A self-timed active bootstrap driver may be used within a DC-DC converters to reduce or eliminate effects associated with passive bootstrap DC-DC converters. The self-timed active bootstrap driver improves or maximizes power efficiency by using available CMOS devices to sense the inductor node voltage Vx and using this information to turn ON the self-timed active bootstrap switch only at the falling edge of Vx node or when Vx close to “0,” which ensures that BST switch is turned ON when HS switch is OFF and Vx<VBS. This self-timed active bootstrap driver avoids the situation where Vx>VBS or where both HS switch and the BST switch are ON at the same time, and therefore reduces or minimizers efficiency penalties and circuit component aging and reliability issues that may result from bootstrapping.

Abstract: Some embodiments include apparatus and methods for using a switch to couple an inductor to an energy harvester for a time interval to allow charging of the inductor during the time interval, and using a circuit to generate control information for power management. A value of the control information is based on a value of the time interval.

Abstract: Some embodiments include apparatus and methods for using a switch to couple an inductor to an energy harvester for a time interval to allow charging of the inductor during the time interval, and using a circuit to generate control information for power management. A value of the control information is based on a value of the time interval.