Threshold Voltage Start-up Boost Converter for Sub-mA Applications

Author

Sze, Ngok-Man ; Ki, Wing-Hung ; Tsui, Chi-ying

Author_Institution

Hong Kong Univ. of Sci. & Technol., Hong Kong

fYear

2008

fDate

23-25 Jan. 2008

Firstpage

338

Lastpage

341

Abstract

A threshold voltage start-up (TVS) scheme for a boost converter is presented. The TVS converter could start up at the average threshold voltage of the fabrication process, and converts a fluctuating (energy harvesting) input of 0.2 V to 0.9 V to a regulated output of 1.2 V. It operates in discontinuous conduction mode with peak current control (and thus operates with pulse frequency modulation) to reduce switching loss at light loads. The converter was designed with an AMS 0.35 mum CMOS process and measured 675 mumtimes615 mum. The maximum efficiency is 83% at an output current of 1 mA with an input voltage of 0.9 V.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; DC-DC power convertors; electric current control; AMS CMOS process; DC-DC converter; TVS scheme; boost converter; current 1 mA; discontinuous conduction mode; energy harvesting; fabrication process; peak current control; size 0.35 mum; threshold voltage start-up scheme; voltage 0.2 V to 0.9 V; voltage 1.2 V; Application software; Batteries; CMOS process; DC-DC power converters; Electronic equipment testing; Photovoltaic cells; Switches; Switching converters; Threshold voltage; Zero voltage switching; Boost converter; DC-DC converter; PFM; energy harvesting; start up;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Electronic Design, Test and Applications, 2008. DELTA 2008. 4th IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Hong Kong

Print_ISBN

978-0-7695-3110-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/DELTA.2008.126

Filename

4459567