Novel Switched Capacitor (SC) approach based on the bistable mechanical switches

In this paper a novel Switched Capacitor (SC) approach based on mechanical switches driven by vibrations is proposed. The principle has been validated and compared with “classical” MOS-based SC architectures. The proposed device is composed of two magnetically-coupled cantilevers having each one a bistable behavior. An antisymmetric bistable behavior (180° of phase shift) has been obtained by using two magnets with equal orientation. This condition is suitable to create non-overlapped signals so that not all (mechanical) switches are closed simultaneously. Classical SC converters suffer from a fundamental power loss deficiency and low-frequency noisily contribution which make their use in some applications prohibitive; this drawback is absent in the proposed solution. The presented approach has been used here to implement integrated filter/amplifiers having several attractive features such as: low frequency applications, low leakage switches (galvanic isolation), low noise architectures, simple driving device.