Marco Pasotti

Efficiency comparison between doubler and Dickson charge pumps

The paper presents a comparison between two of the most popular charge pump structures, the Dickson charge pump and the cascade of voltage doublers. The comparison has been carried out considering power efficiency as the main parameter of interest. The discussion is supported by theoretical analysis and experimental results. To compare the two topologies, two voltage elevators were designed and integrated in a triple-well 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. The two charge pumps were designed with the same operating clock frequency, the same storage capacitance per stage, and the same number of stages (and, thus, approximately the same area). The comparison showed that the voltage doubler has the higher power efficiency by about 13%.

A high compliance CMOS current source for low voltage applications

This paper presents a novel CMOS current source suitable for low voltage applications. The new design shows better compliance voltage than the simple two transistor current mirror while offering improved accuracy and output impedance, featuring 140 K/spl Omega/ output resistance at an output voltage of 30 mV and output current of 30 /spl mu/A. The circuit has been manufactured in a 0.25 /spl mu/m, 2.5 V power supply digital CMOS process from STMicroelectronics.