RT Journal Article
T1 Micro-Energy Harvesting System including a PMU and a Solar Cell on the same Substrate with Cold Start-Up from 2.38 nW and Input Power Range up to 10μW using Continuous MPPT
A1 Ferro Santiago, Esteban
A1 Brea Sánchez, Víctor Manuel
A1 López Martínez, Paula
A1 Cabello Ferrer, Diego
K1 Energy harvesting
K1 DC-DC power conversion
K1 PMU
K1 On-Chip Solar Cell
K1 Analog MPPT
AB This paper presents a Power Management Unit (PMU) powered by a 1 mm $^2$ solar cell on the same substrate to rise up the harvested voltage above 1.1 V. The on-chip solar cell and the PMU are fabricated in standard 0.18 μm CMOS technology achieving a form factor of 1.575 mm $^2$ . The PMU is able to start up from a harvested power of 2.38 nW without any external kick off or control signal. The PMU features a continuous and two-dimensional Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) working in open-loop mode to handle a harvested power range from nW to $\mu$ W, by modifying both the charge pump topology and the switching frequency. The MPPT is based on four voltage level detectors that define five working regions depending on the illumination and on a self-tuning reference current for a fine adjustment of the switching frequency. The chip also includes an auxiliary charge pump to generate the voltage level necessary for the control circuit, implemented as a Pelliconi charge pump of 8 stages with NMOS transistors in Pwell as diodes. A Dickson charge pump with transmission gates as switches and with variable gain and capacitance per stage is also designed as the main charge pump. Finally, two relaxation oscillators are implemented to drive both charge pumps. This paper is accompanied by a video file demonstrating the PMU operation by powering an off-chip NAND gate
PB IEEE
SN 0885-8993
YR 2018
FD 2018-10-19
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/18342
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/18342
LA eng
NO Esteban Ferro, Víctor Manuel Brea, Paula López and Diego Cabello (2018) Micro-Energy Harvesting System including a PMU and a Solar Cell on the same Substrate with Cold Start-Up from 2.38 nW and Input Power Range up to 10 W using Continuous MPPT. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER ELECTRONICS, 63(1), 1-12. Doi: 10.1109/TPEL.2018.2877105
NO This work has been partially funded by Spanish government project TEC2015-66878-C3-3-R MINECO (FEDER), in part by Xunta de Galicia under Project ED431C2017/69, in part by the Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria (accreditation 2016-2019, ED431G/08) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), and in part byXunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Social Fund - ESF)
DS Minerva
RD 24 abr 2026