A 40mV start up voltage DC - DC converter for thermoelectric energy harvesting applications

Author

Veri, C. ; Pasca, M. ; D´Amico, S. ; Francioso, L.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Innovation Eng., Univ. of Salento, Lecce, Italy

fYear

2014

fDate

June 30 2014-July 3 2014

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

A low start up voltage DC - DC converter for thermoelectric energy harvesting is presented in this paper. Output voltage of a thermoelectric energy generator (TEG) provides an output voltage from 40mV to 400mV, depending of thermal gradient. In order to increase input voltage, a boost converter is used. The proposed DC - DC converter is composed of two main sections. One provides a high duty cycle pulse width modulation for a forward control. It is used when the voltage coming from the TEG, is in the 40mV to 150mV range. As the TEG voltage it is higher than 150mV, a feedback circuit is switched on. It provides a more accurate control of the output voltage. Entire DC - DC converter is implemented in a 65nm bulk CMOS technology.

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; DC-DC power convertors; circuit feedback; energy harvesting; thermoelectric conversion; TEG; boost converter; bulk CMOS technology; feedback circuit; forward control; high duty cycle pulse width modulation; low start up voltage DC-DC converter; size 65 nm; thermal gradient; thermoelectric energy generator; thermoelectric energy harvesting; voltage 40 mV to 400 mV; Charge pumps; Clocks; Energy harvesting; Low voltage; Oscillators; Pulse width modulation; Voltage control; DC - DC Converter; energy harvesting; low startup voltage; thermoelectric generator;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Ph.D. Research in Microelectronics and Electronics (PRIME), 2014 10th Conference on

Conference_Location

Grenoble

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/PRIME.2014.6872740

Filename

6872740