Patent ID: 6972596

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 through one or more cascaded CMOS inverter stages; and periodically initializing the input voltage of the first CMOS inverter stage, wherein the initialization involves: suspending data transmission on the capacitive transmitter pad and setting the voltage on the capacitive transmitter pad to a middle point between a voltage that represents logic “1” and a voltage that represents logic “0”; coupling the output of the first CMOS inverter stage to its input, thereby equilibrating the input voltage of the first CMOS inverter to a switching-threshold of the first CMOS inverter stage when the capacitive transmitter pad is at the middle point between the voltage that represents logic “1” and the voltage that represents logic “0”, and thereby allowing a small input signal voltage swing to trigger an amplified output signal voltage swing; and after the input voltage of the first CMOS inverter stage substantially stabilizes at the switching threshold, uncoupling the output of the first CMOS inverter stage from the input of the first CMOS inverter stage and then resuming data transmission on the capacitive transmitter pad.