Patent ID: 8174288

Claim:
An integrated circuit (IC) system, comprising: a plurality of ICs configured in a stacked voltage domain arrangement with respect to an external power supply voltage such that a low side supply rail of at least one of the plurality of ICs is common with a high side supply rail of at least another of the plurality of the ICs; a reversible voltage converter coupled to power rails of each of the plurality of ICs, the voltage converter configured for stabilizing individual voltage domains corresponding to each IC; and one or more data voltage level shifters configured to facilitate data communication between ICs operating in different voltage domains, wherein an input signal of a given logic state corresponding to one voltage in a first voltage domain is shifted to an output signal of the same logic state at another voltage in a second voltage domain; wherein the one or more data voltage level shifters further comprise: an inverter operating in the first voltage domain that receives the input signal of a given logic state; a cross-coupled latch device operating in the second voltage domain that produces the output signal of the same logic state; and a capacitor that dynamically couples an inverted value of the input signal to a first node of the latch device, such that a second, complementary node of the latch device corresponds to shifted output data for use in the second voltage domain.