Abstract
Over the last years, the Internet of Things (IoT) has experienced an increased
interest amongst the scientific community. This enthusiasm for the IoT goes together
with the many researches led in the field of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which
will be a key technology for the IoT. The integration of sensors in the IoT is what
makes the connexion between the virtual and the physical world possible : this is
the Internet of the future.
Energy autonomy of the IoT node is a critical aspect of this technology. The use
of energy harvesting techniques such as photovoltaic cells or thermoelectric genera-
tors (TEGs) is an important milestone in order to achieve this autonomy. This work
will focus on the design of a switched capacitor DC/DC converter. This converter
will be connected to the output of a TEG which delivers a voltage as low as 0.156V
and will increase it to a target voltage of 0.5V. The developped design methodology
is mostly based on the analysis of simulation results obtained using the software
Eldo from Mentor Graphics. The use of such a tool proves essential in the design of
a circuit based on advanced MOS technology (65nm GP) and working in subthre-
shold region. An optimization algorithm inspired by the gradient descent has also
been used in order to set some circuit parameters.
The final circuit includes the following elements : the equivalent model of the
TEG, the DC/DC converter based on a multi-stage voltage doubler topology, a ring
oscillator, a non overlapping clock generator, and clock buffers. The efficiency of the
complete system is 49.6% and provides an output voltage of 0.525V under a load
current of 5.25µA.
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