access icon free Short startup, batteryless, self-starting thermal energy harvesting chip working in full clock cycle

The Internet of Things paradigm considers the deployment in the environment of a profusion of heterogeneous sensor nodes, connected in a complex network, and autonomously powered. Energy harvesting is the common proposed solution to supply such sensors, and many different sources such as light, mechanical vibrations, temperature differences can be considered individually or in combination. Specifically, a thermoelectric generator (TEG), taking advantage of the Seebeck effect, is able to harvest electrical power from a temperature gradient of a few degrees. This study presents a chip fabricated in 130 nm CMOS technology, designed to convert a typical 50 mV output from a TEG into 1 V. The batteryless design utilises both halves of a 50% duty cycle clock. Measurements have been performed by using a TEG, and an equivalent TEG model, i.e. voltage source (50 mV–200 mV) with a series resistance of 5 Ω. The result shows that the proposed prototype can extract 60% (at 50 mV) to 65% (at 200 mV) of the total available power. The energy harvester can self-start at 50 mV with a 2.8 ms startup time, which is a significant improvement over the past work.

Inspec keywords: CMOS integrated circuits; energy harvesting; thermoelectric conversion

Other keywords: size 130 nm; short startup batteryless self-starting thermal energy harvesting chip; mechanical vibration; Seebeck effect; voltage 1 V; heterogeneous sensor node; time 2.8 ms; thermoelectric generator; complex network; Internet of Things paradigm; CMOS technology; equivalent TEG model; resistance 5 ohm; voltage 50 mV to 200 mV; electrical power harvesting; temperature gradient

Subjects: Energy harvesting; Thermoelectric conversion; CMOS integrated circuits; Energy harvesting; Other direct energy conversion

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