Patent ID: 11923120
Assignee: INFINEON TECHNOLOGIES AG
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H  G | IPC G  H

Claim 0:
1. A circuit comprising:
a transformer configured to transmit signals between two different voltage domains in a normal mode of the circuit, wherein the transformer includes:
a first coil arranged on a substrate,
a second coil arranged above the first coil on the substrate,
a dielectric between the first coil and the second coil, and
a grounded guard ring surrounding the first and second coils; and

a resonant circuit that includes an automatic gain control (AGC), wherein the resonant circuit that includes the AGC is couplable to the first coil and/or the second coil to form a resonant loop in a diagnostic mode of the circuit, wherein either the first coil or the second coil defines an inductance in the resonant loop and wherein a capacitance of the resonant loop is defined at least in part by an existing capacitance associated with the first coil or the second coil, wherein a measure of a characteristic frequency of the resonant loop and a measure of a current consumption of the resonant loop are output by the resonant circuit in the diagnostic mode of the circuit,
wherein the resonant loop within the resonant circuit that includes the AGC forms an oscillator circuit that defines the characteristic frequency and the current consumption, and
wherein the measure of the characteristic frequency of the resonant loop and the current consumption during the diagnostic mode of the circuit indicates whether a fault exists in the first and/or second coils of the transformer.