Microwave silicon on insulator-based design of a power management system for jet propulsion laboratory´s rechargeable micro-scale batteries

In the area of power storage for aerospace applications, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, has developed an all solid-state rechargeable micro-scale lithium ion battery cell (micro-battery) rated at 4.25 V, with nano-Ampere hour capacity. One of the advantages of this development is the ability to fabricate approximately 20 000 individual micro-battery cells adjacent to each other on the same four-inch silicon wafer. To take advantage of a pre/post-fabricated series, parallel or series/parallel connection of the cells, a power management system has been developed and sub-system circuits designed using a combination of device and circuit techniques meeting high voltage switching requirements in silicon on insulator (SOI) technology to reconfigure and control the charge/discharge operation of the cells for practical application. This study will present a detailed analysis of the power management system and its sub-circuit components. The circuit components have been simulated using 3.3 V SOI SPICE models and have been fabricated in a 0.35 m Microwave SOI process. A description of the system and the results will also be discussed and analysed.