A fully electrical startup batteryless boost converter with 50mV input voltage for thermoelectric energy harvesting

Author

Tang, Hao-Yen ; Weng, Po-Shuan ; Ku, Po-Chih ; Lu, Liang-Hung

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. Eng., Nat. Taiwan Univ., Taipei, Taiwan

fYear

2012

fDate

13-15 June 2012

Firstpage

196

Lastpage

197

Abstract

A fully electrical startup boost converter is presented in this paper. With a three-stage stepping-up architecture, the proposed circuit is capable of performing thermoelectric energy harvesting at an input voltage as low as 50 mV. Due to the zero-current-switching (ZCS) operation of the boost converter and automatic shutdown of the low-voltage starter and the auxiliary converter, conversion efficiency up to 73% is demonstrated. The boost converter does not require bulky transformers or mechanical switches for kick-start, making it very attractive for body area sensor network applications.

Keywords

body area networks; energy harvesting; power convertors; zero current switching; ZCS operation; auxiliary converter; body area sensor network applications; conversion efficiency; full electrical startup batteryless boost converter; low-voltage starter; thermoelectric energy harvesting; three-stage stepping-up architecture; voltage 50 mV; zero-current-switching operation; CMOS process; Clocks; Energy harvesting; Generators; Oscillators; Very large scale integration; Voltage control;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

VLSI Circuits (VLSIC), 2012 Symposium on

Conference_Location

Honolulu, HI

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-0848-9

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4673-0845-8

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/VLSIC.2012.6243857

Filename

6243857