30–300mV input, ultra-low power, self-startup DC-DC boost converter for energy harvesting system

Abstract

An ultra-low power consumption, self-startup boost converter for energy harvesting application is developed in SMIC 0.18μm CMOS process. The idle power consumption is reduced to as low as 1.9μW by using a novel output voltage detector (OVD) and a constant on time (COT) controller with maximum power point tracking (MPPT), which ensures high power efficiency for a wide input voltage range from 30mV to 300mV. Furthermore, a charge-pump based self-startup circuit (CPSC) is introduced to kick start the whole system without using any additional off-chip components. Simulation results show that the power efficiency of this boost converter reaches 84% (or 65%) when delivering 180μW (or 9μW) to the output at input voltage of 80 mV.