An Autonomous Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting IC Based on a Synchronous Multi-Shot Technique

• Published in: IEEE journal of solid-state circuits 2014-07, Vol.49 (7), p.1561-1570
• Main Authors: Gasnier, Pierre, Willemin, Jerome, Boisseau, Sebastien, Despesse, Ghislain, Condemine, Cyril, Gouvernet, Guillaume, Chaillout, Jean-Jacques
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Autonomous; Capacitors; Energy harvesting; integrated circuit; Integrated circuits; Low voltage; Magnetic cores; multi-shots; piezoelectric harvesters; SECE; self-starting; Switches; Wireless sensor networks; wireless sensor nodes
• ISSN: 0018-9200; 1558-173X
• DOI: 10.1109/JSSC.2014.2325555

This paper presents a fully autonomous integrated circuit (IC) dedicated to piezoelectric harvesters. The novel Multi-Shot Synchronous Electric Charge Extraction (MS-SECE) performed by the IC optimizes the energy transfer from a highly charged piezoelectric harvester to a low voltage storage element. The system deals with piezoelectric powers in the 10 μW to 1 mW range and handles very high piezoelectric voltage values ( >100 V) thanks to the off-chip components around the IC. The IC has been fabricated in AMS 0.35 μm 3.3 V technology and its low power consumption (1 μW @ 5 Hz) is particularly suitable for low frequency harvesters. MS-SECE increases the extracted power compared to the Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) technique but it also improves the efficiency by up to 25% compared to standard SECE. Furthermore, MS-SECE allows the use of small off-chip components: an efficiency of 61% has been reached with a 125 mm 3 coupled-inductor. Finally, the proposed power management circuit self-starts, works without any battery and its overall volume is expected to be less than 1 cm 3 .