Low Start Up Voltage Charge Pump for Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting

Charge pumps are widely used in thermoelectric scavenging systems to increase the thermoelectric generator output voltage to a suitable voltage that can supply the standard integrated circuit. Threshold voltage cancellation (Vt cancellation) scheme is applied to cancel the threshold drop associated with each diode-connected device and improve charge pump performance. Applying this scheme by using the next stage higher voltage is presented. Improving the output stage using this scheme is also presented. Simulations are performed using TSMC 0.25m CMOS technology in Spectre .