Cmos Circuits for Electromagnetic Vibration Transducers ― Interfaces for Ultra-low Voltage Energy Harvesting

Chip-integrated power management solutions are a must for ultra-low power systems. This enables not only the optimization of innovative sensor applications. It is also essential for integration and miniaturization of energy harvesting supply strategies of portable and autonomous monitoring systems.

The book particularly addresses interfaces for energy harvesting, which are the key element to connect micro transducers to energy storage elements. Main features of the book are:

- A comprehensive technology and application review, basics on transducer mechanics, fundamental circuit and control design, prototyping and testing, up to sensor system supply and applications.

- Novel interfacing concepts - including active rectifiers, MPPT methods for efficient tracking of DC as well as AC sources, and a fully-integrated charge pump for efficient maximum AC power tracking at sub-100μW ultra-low power levels. The chips achieve one of widest presented operational voltage range in standard CMOS technology: 0.44V to over 4.1V.

- Two special chapters on analog circuit design – it studies benefits and obstacles on implemented chip prototypes with three goals: ultra- low power, wide supply voltage range, and integration with standard technologies. Alternative design approaches are pursued using bulk-input transistor stages in forward-bias operation for amplifiers, modulators, and references.

- Comprehensive Appendix – with additional fundamental analysis, design and scaling guidelines, circuit implementation tables and dimensions, schematics, source code listings, bill of material, etc.

Dominic Maurath received the Dipl.-Ing. (FH) degree in sensor systems technology from the University of Applied Science, Karlsruhe, Germany, in 2004. Thereafter, he was with the Energy Harvesting Systems Group of HSG-IMIT, which he left in 2007 to join The DFG Research Training Program for Micro Energy Harvesting at the University of Freiburg to receive his Dr.-Ing. Degree in 2013. His research focus was on sensor systems and integrated circuits in weak inversion mode for ultra-low power wide voltage range MPPT interfaces and DC/DC converters. Besides energy harvesting applications, his further interests are on power management design and system integration for wireless and self-sustaining autonomous sensor networks.

Throughout his work, he had been involved in several BMBF and DFG projects (Energy Harvesting, MEMS and integrated circuit systems, as well as Automotive sensors), supervised many Master- and Bachelor students – with one of his student group he was awarded in the European-wide Texas Instruments Analog Design Contest (2011). He has three Best Paper Awards in integrated circuit chip design, holds several patents, and is active as a reviewer in IEEE Journals and Conferences.

In 2012, he joined the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. There, he is with the Energy Research Institute (ERI@N), where he works on sustainable building technology - his responsibilities cover ICT infrastructure development for distributed energy information management and control systems.

With a hardware development group, he works on wireless sensor application development using combined energy generation/storage elements, as well as mixed-signal ASIC design and printed electronics for targeting indoor ambience control and air quality monitoring.

Yiannos Manoli is the Dean of Engineering and holds the Fritz Huettinger Chair of Microelectronics in the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK) at the University of Freiburg, Germany. Since 2005 he has additionally served as director of the applied research “Institute of Micromachining and Information Technology” of the “Hahn-Schickard Gesellschaft” (HSG-IMIT).

His research interests are the design of low-voltage and low-power mixed-signal systems with over 300 papers published in these areas. The emphasis lies in Analog-to-Digital converters as well as in energy harvesting and sensor read-out CMOS circuits. Additional research activities concentrate on motion and vibration energy transducers and on inertial sensors.

Prof. Manoli received Best Paper Awards from ESSCIRC 2012, 2009 and 1988, MWSCAS 2007, MSE 2007, and PowerMEMS 2006. For his creative and effective contributions to the teaching of microelectronics and the design of a web-based animation and visualization of analog circuits (Spicy VOLTsim, www.imtek.de/svs) he received various awards including the Excellence in Teaching Award of the University of Freiburg and the Teaching Award of the State of Baden-Wurttemberg.

Professor Manoli served as a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE, as well as Guest Editor of the “IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems” and the “IEEE Journal of Solid-State Circuits”. He is on the Senior Editorial Board of the IEEE “Journal on Emerging and Selected Topics in Circuits and Systems” and on the Editorial Board of the “Journal of Low Power Electronics”. Professor Manoli has served on the committees of a number of conferences such as ISSCC, ESSCIRC, IEDM and ICCD, and was Program Chair (2001) and General Chair (2002) of the IEEE International Conference on Computer Design (ICCD).