A Highly Efficient RF-DC Converter for Energy Harvesting Applications Using a Threshold Voltage Cancellation Scheme

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Microelectronics
• Energy Harvesting

Background:

• Radio Frequency (RF) energy harvesting is crucial for powering low-power devices.
• Traditional RF-DC converters suffer from threshold voltage limitations, reducing efficiency.
• Efficient power conversion is key for practical RF energy harvesting applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel self-threshold voltage compensated RF-DC converter.
• To improve the performance of RF-DC converters for RF energy harvesting.
• To achieve high power conversion efficiency (PCE) at 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz.

Main Methods:

• Implemented a self-threshold voltage compensated RF-DC converter using 180 nm CMOS technology.
• Utilized auxiliary transistors and output DC voltage for threshold voltage compensation.
• Tested the converter's performance at 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz.

Main Results:

• Achieved a peak PCE of 38.5% at 900 MHz (-12 dBm input, 1 MΩ load).
• Achieved a peak PCE of 26.5% at 2.4 GHz (-6 dBm input, 1 MΩ load).
• Demonstrated a sensitivity of -20 dBm and a 1 V output DC voltage.

Conclusions:

• The proposed self-threshold voltage compensated RF-DC converter offers superior performance.
• The design is suitable for RF energy harvesting applications due to its efficiency and sensitivity.
• CMOS technology enables efficient and compact RF-DC converter designs.