Small-Area Radiofrequency-Energy-Harvesting Integrated Circuits for Powering Wireless Sensor Networks
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Department of Electrical Engineering, National Taipei University of Technology, Taipei 10608, Taiwan
2
Research and Development Centre for Smart Textile Technology, National Taipei University of Technology, 1, Sec. 3, Zhongxiao E. Rd., Taipei 10608, Taiwan
3
General Manager Office, Goodfield Technology Co., Ltd., 46, Lane 55, Sec. 3, Zhiyuan Rd., Taipei 11265, Taiwan
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Sensors 2019, 19(8), 1754; https://doi.org/10.3390/s19081754
Received: 23 February 2019
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Revised: 6 April 2019
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Accepted: 9 April 2019
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Published: 12 April 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Energy Harvesting Sensor Systems)
This study presents a radiofrequency (RF)-energy-harvesting integrated circuit (IC) for powering wireless sensor networks with a wireless transmitter with an industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) of 915 MHz. The proposed IC comprises an RF-direct current (DC) rectifier, an over-voltage protection circuit, a low-power low-dropout (LDO) voltage regulator, and a charger control circuit. In the RF-DC rectifier circuit, a six-stage Dickson voltage multiplier circuit is used to improve the received RF signal to a DC voltage by using native MOS with a small threshold voltage. The over-voltage protection circuit is used to prevent a high-voltage breakdown phenomenon from the RF front-end circuit, particularly for near-field communication. A low-power LDO regulator is designed to provide stable voltage by using zero frequency compensation and a voltage-trimming feedback. Charging current is amplified N times by using a current mirror to rapidly and stably charge a battery in the proposed charger control circuit. The obtained results revealed that the maximum power conversion efficiency of the proposed RF-energy-harvesting IC was 40.56% at an input power of −6 dBm, an output voltage of 1.5 V, and a load of 30 kΩ. A chip area of the RF-energy-harvesting IC was 0.58 × 0.49 mm2, including input/output pads, and power consumption was 42 μW.
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Keywords:
radiofrequency; ISM 915 MHz; energy-harvesting IC; native MOS; Dickson voltage multiplier; over-voltage protection circuit; low-dropout regulator; charger control circuit
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MDPI and ACS Style
Sung, G.-M.; Chung, C.-K.; Lai, Y.-J.; Syu, J.-Y. Small-Area Radiofrequency-Energy-Harvesting Integrated Circuits for Powering Wireless Sensor Networks. Sensors 2019, 19, 1754. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19081754
AMA Style
Sung G-M, Chung C-K, Lai Y-J, Syu J-Y. Small-Area Radiofrequency-Energy-Harvesting Integrated Circuits for Powering Wireless Sensor Networks. Sensors. 2019; 19(8):1754. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19081754
Chicago/Turabian StyleSung, Guo-Ming, Chao-Kong Chung, Yu-Jen Lai, and Jin-Yu Syu. 2019. "Small-Area Radiofrequency-Energy-Harvesting Integrated Circuits for Powering Wireless Sensor Networks" Sensors 19, no. 8: 1754. https://doi.org/10.3390/s19081754
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