Patent ID: 8248152

Claim:
An on-chip voltage conversion apparatus for integrated circuits, comprising: a first capacitor; a first NFET device configured to selectively couple a first electrode of the first capacitor to a low side voltage rail of a first voltage domain; a first PFET device configured to selectively couple the first electrode of the first capacitor to a high side voltage rail of the first voltage domain; a second NFET device configured to selectively couple a second electrode of the first capacitor to a low side voltage rail of a second voltage domain, wherein the low side voltage rail of the second voltage domain corresponds to the high side voltage rail of the first voltage domain; and a second PFET device configured to selectively couple the second electrode of the first capacitor to a high side voltage rail of the second voltage domain; wherein actuating signals for the first NFET device and first PFET device are decoupled from one another, and actuating signals for the second NFET device and second PFET device are decoupled from one another; one or more additional capacitors in series with the first capacitor; and one or more pairs of additional NFET and PFET devices associated with one or more additional voltage domains for each one or more additional capacitors so as to define a voltage converter that nominally converts a voltage level of N voltage units to a voltage level of M voltage units and vice versa; wherein N represents the total number of pairs of NFET and PFET devices, N−1 represents the total number of capacitors, and 1≦M≦N−1.