Patent ID: 7026867

Claim:
A method for amplifying capacitively coupled inter-chip communication signals, comprising: receiving an input signal at a capacitive receiver pad from a capacitive transmitter pad; amplifying the input signal in an amplifier mechanism, wherein the amplifier mechanism has substantially no DC coupling to an input of the amplifier mechanism; and selectively initializing an input voltage of the input of the amplifier mechanism, wherein the initializing involves, suspending data transmission on the capacitive transmitter pad and setting a voltage on the capacitive transmitter pad to a middle point between a voltage that represents a logical “1” and a voltage that represents a logical “0”, coupling a voltage generated by a voltage offset correction mechanism to the input thereby equilibrating the input voltage of the input to a switching-threshold voltage of a first stage in the amplifying mechanism when the capacitive transmitter pad is at the middle point between the voltage that represents a logical “1” and the voltage that represents a logical “0”, and thereby allowing a small input signal voltage swing of the input to trigger an amplified output signal voltage swing, and after the input voltage of the input substantially stabilizes at the switching-threshold voltage of the first stage, uncoupling the voltage offset correction mechanism from the input and then resuming data transmission on the capacitive transmitter pad.