The designs of low power AC-DC converter for power electronics system applications

This paper reviews low power AC-DC converter in different techniques capable of developing high efficiency of energy consumption in many applications. By using low power AC-DC converter, the size of whole system integrated circuit could be reduced. However, the requirements of CMOS converter that required low input voltage and low voltage drop of MOS transistors is discussed. Different techniques in different application are implemented to overcome those problems. In this paper, the reviews of low power AC-DC converters have been focused for energy harvesting systems and wireless power devices only. These AC-DC converters consume several micro-watts from small ac or rf signal voltage and achieve excellent performance in terms of power efficiency. However, the power efficiency of AC-DC converter system is actually highly correlated to the relationship between voltage and the alternating current in ac source. It is because, an in-phase voltage and current in alternating current source is causing in good power factor performance. Power factor correction, PFC is important in many single-phase AC-DC converter circuits to reduce harmonic distortion, hence increase power efficiency of electric appliances. Therefore, the low power AC-DC converter with PFC is proposed. The post-layout of low power AC-DC converter is designed by using the Silterra 0.18 μm technology. The whole post-layout AC-DC converter circuit consumes only 50 μW and works in low voltage, 1V. The power efficiency of whole system also improved to 93%. The proposed low power AC-DC converter with PFC is suitable for future power electronics systems such as battery charger and energy conversion devices.