Note: Complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor high voltage pulse generation circuits

We present two types of on-chip pulse generation circuits. The first is based on CMOS pulse-forming-lines (PFLs). It includes a four-stage charge pump, a four-stacked-MOSFET switch and a 5 mm long PFL. The circuit is implemented in a 0.13 μm CMOS process. Pulses of ~1.8 V amplitude with ~135 ps duration on a 50 Ω load are obtained. The obtained voltage is higher than 1.6 V, the rated operating voltage of the process. The second is a high-voltage Marx generator which also uses stacked MOSFETs as high voltage switches. The output voltage is 11.68 V, which is higher than the highest breakdown voltage (~10 V) of the CMOS process. These results significantly extend high-voltage pulse generation capabilities of CMOS technologies.