A 0.2V-1.2V DC/DC Boost Converter for Power Harvesting Applications

In this paper, a dc/dc converter is presented that can boost very low voltages to the typical supply voltages of current integrated circuits (1.2 V–1.5 V). The converter is based on a new hybrid inductive and capacitive architecture and it is suitable for power harvesting applications too. The measured prototype can supply 1.2 V by converting an input voltage of 200 mV delivered by a thermopile exposed to a 5 ◦C thermal gradient. A chip was designed and fabricated using a United Microelectronics Corp. (UMC) 180-nm low-threshold CMOS process. Measurements on the chip confirm the validity of the design.