A slave circuit for a DC-to-DC converter includes a switching circuit adapted to repeatedly switch a switching node between two different voltage levels, a slave control adapted to control switching of the switching circuit based at least in part on control signals from a master controller, a communication port, and a communication module. The communication module is adapted to (a) generate an analog slave communication signal at the communication port, where the analog slave communication signal represents information associated with the slave circuit, and (b) generate a digital slave communication signal at the communication port in response to occurrence of an event, where the digital slave communication signal represents additional information associated with the slave circuit.