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Journal ArticleDOI

Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for Energy Harvesting Applications

TL;DR: The capability of obtaining a high PCE at a low RF input power range reveals the superiority of the HTFET RF rectifiers for battery-less energy harvesting applications.
Abstract: Radio-frequency (RF)-powered energy harvesting systems have offered new perspectives in various scientific and clinical applications such as health monitoring, bio-signal acquisition, and battery-less data-transceivers. In such applications, an RF rectifier with high sensitivity, high power conversion efficiency (PCE) is critical to enable the utilization of the ambient RF signal power. In this paper, we explore the high PCE advantage of the steep-slope III-V heterojunction tunnel field-effect transistor (HTFET) RF rectifiers over the Si FinFET baseline design for RF-powered battery-less systems. We investigate the device characteristics of HTFETs to improve the sensitivity and PCE of the RF rectifiers. Different topologies including the two-transistor (2-T) and four-transistor (4-T) complementary-HTFET designs, and the n-type HTFET-only designs are evaluated with design parameter optimizations to achieve high PCE and high sensitivity. The performance evaluation of the optimized 4-T cross-coupled HTFET rectifier has shown an over 50% PCE with an RF input power ranging from -40 dBm to -25 dBm, which significantly extends the RF input power range compared to the baseline Si FinFET design. A maximum PCE of 84% and 85% has been achieved in the proposed 4-T N-HTFET-only rectifier at -33.7 dBm input power and the 4-T cross-coupled HTFET rectifier at -34.5 dBm input power, respectively. The capability of obtaining a high PCE at a low RF input power range reveals the superiority of the HTFET RF rectifiers for battery-less energy harvesting applications.
Citations
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Proceedings ArticleDOI
07 Jun 2015
TL;DR: New metrics of nonvolatile processors to consider energy harvesting factors for the first time are proposed and the nonvolatility processor design from circuit to system level is explored.
Abstract: Energy harvesting is gaining more and more attentions due to its characteristics of ultra-long operation time without maintenance. However, frequent unpredictable power failures from energy harvesters bring performance and reliability challenges to traditional processors. Nonvolatile processors are promising to solve such a problem due to their advantage of zero leakage and efficient backup and restore operations. To optimize the nonvolatile processor design, this paper proposes new metrics of nonvolatile processors to consider energy harvesting factors for the first time. Furthermore, we explore the nonvolatile processor design from circuit to system level. A prototype of energy harvesting nonvolatile processor is set up and experimental results show that the proposed performance metric meets the measured results by less than 6.27% average errors. Finally, the energy consumption of nonvolatile processor is analyzed under different benchmarks.

127 citations


Cites background from "Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..."

  • ...For example, RF and piezoelectric energy require a rectifier [19, 22] for the AC-DC conversion, while photovoltaic and thermoelectric power is direct current....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper pioneers a converter-less PV power system with the maximum power point tracking that directly supplies power to the load without the power converters or the energy storage element and achieves an 87.1% of overall system efficiency during a day.
Abstract: Energy harvesting from natural environment gives range of benefits for the Internet of things. Scavenging energy from photovoltaic (PV) cells is one of the most practical solutions in terms of power density among existing energy harvesting sources. PV power systems mandate the maximum power point tracking (MPPT) to scavenge the maximum possible solar energy. In general, a switching-mode power converter, an MPPT charger, controls the charging current to the energy storage element (a battery or equivalent), and the energy storage element provides power to the load device. The mismatch between the maximum power point (MPP) current and the load current is managed by the energy storage element. However, such architecture causes significant energy loss (typically over 20%) and a significant weight/volume and a high cost due to the cascaded power converters and the energy storage element. This paper pioneers a converter-less PV power system with the MPPT that directly supplies power to the load without the power converters or the energy storage element. The proposed system uses a nonvolatile microprocessor to enable an extremely fine-grain dynamic power management in a few hundred microseconds. This makes it possible to match the load current with the MPP current. We present detailed modeling, simulation, and optimization of the proposed energy harvesting system including the radio frequency transceiver. Experiments show that the proposed setup achieves an 87.1% of overall system efficiency during a day, 30.6% higher than the conventional MPPT methods in actual measurements, and thus a significantly higher duty cycle under a weak solar irradiance.

87 citations


Cites background from "Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..."

  • ...I. INTRODUCTION SOME technical reports predicted that the number of smartsensors will reach to trillions in the near future [1]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the GNR TFETs are identified as one of the most attractive field effect transistor technologies proposed to date for ultra-low power analog applications, which can operate in the sub-threshold region with larger transconductance-to-current ratio than traditional FETs.
Abstract: Tunnel field effect transistors (TFETs) have emerged as one of the most promising post-CMOS transistor technologies. In this paper, we: 1) review the perspectives of such devices for low-power high-frequency analog integrated circuit applications (e.g., GHz operation with sub-0.1 mW power consumption); 2) discuss and employ a compact TFET device model in the context of the $g_{m}/I_{d}$ integrated analog circuit design methodology; and 3) compare several proposed TFET technologies for such applications. The advantages of TFETs arise since these devices can operate in the sub-threshold region with larger transconductance-to-current ratio than traditional FETs, which is due to the current turn-on mechanism being interband tunneling rather than thermionic emission. Starting from technology computer-aided design and/or analytical models for Si-FinFETs, graphene nano-ribbon (GNR) TFETs and InAs/GaSb TFETs at the 15-nm gate-length node, as well as InAs double-gate TFETs at the 20-nm gate-length node, we conclude that GNR TFETs might promise larger bandwidths at low-voltage drives due to their high current densities in the sub-threshold region. Based on this analysis and on theoretically predicted properties, GNR TFETs are identified as one of the most attractive field effect transistor technologies proposed-to-date for ultra-low power analog applications.

73 citations


Cites methods from "Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..."

  • ...As pointed out in [13]–[15], established design methodologies and tools as well as compact equations representing the device response in all the biasing design space are often required by analog IC designers as a guide for performing optimal circuit design....

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  • ...For instance, in [15] the optimization of a TFET-based differential drive rectifier is presented....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The DEIN communication network proposed in this paper regards the convergence of WIT and WET as a full system that considers not only the physical layer but also the higher layers, such as media access control and information routing.
Abstract: This paper describes a new type of communication network called data and energy integrated communication networks (DEINs), which integrates the traditionally separate two processes, i.e., wireless information transfer (WIT) and wireless energy transfer (WET), fulfilling co-transmission of data and energy. In particular, the energy transmission using radio frequency is for the purpose of energy harvesting (EH) rather than information decoding. One driving force of the advent of DEINs is wireless big data, which comes from wireless sensors that produce a large amount of small piece of data. These sensors are typically powered by battery that drains sooner or later and will have to be taken out and then replaced or recharged. EH has emerged as a technology to wirelessly charge batteries in a contactless way. Recent research work has attempted to combine WET with WIT, typically under the label of simultaneous wireless information and power transfer. Such work in the literature largely focuses on the communication side of the whole wireless networks with particular emphasis on power allocation. The DEIN communication network proposed in this paper regards the convergence of WIT and WET as a full system that considers not only the physical layer but also the higher layers, such as media access control and information routing. After describing the DEIN concept and its high-level architecture/protocol stack, this paper presents two use cases focusing on the lower layer and the higher layer of a DEIN network, respectively. The lower layer use case is about a fair resource allocation algorithm, whereas the high-layer section introduces an efficient data forwarding scheme in combination with EH. The two case studies aim to give a better explanation of the DEIN concept. Some future research directions and challenges are also pointed out.

66 citations


Cites background from "Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..."

  • ...e, energy transfer) if their power level is lower than the power sensitivity of an RF-DC circuit [26]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
10 Nov 2020-Sensors
TL;DR: The main focus of this manuscript is to establish good practices for the design of IoT devices (i.e., smart devices) with a focus on two main design challenges: power and connectivity.
Abstract: Internet of Things (IoT) has been developing to become a free exchange of useful information between multiple real-world devices. Already spread all over the world in the most varied forms and applications, IoT devices need to overcome a series of challenges to respond to the new requirements and demands. The main focus of this manuscript is to establish good practices for the design of IoT devices (i.e., smart devices) with a focus on two main design challenges: power and connectivity. It groups IoT devices in passive, semi-passive, and active, giving details on multiple research topics. Backscatter communication, Wireless Power Transfer (WPT), Energy Harvesting (EH), chipless devices, Simultaneous Wireless Information and Power Transfer (SWIPT), and Wake-Up Radio (WUR) are some examples of the technologies that will be explored in this work.

42 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
25 Oct 2010
TL;DR: This review introduces and summarizes progress in the development of the tunnel field- effect transistors (TFETs) including its origin, current experimental and theoretical performance relative to the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), basic current-transport theory, design tradeoffs, and fundamental challenges.
Abstract: Steep subthreshold swing transistors based on interband tunneling are examined toward extending the performance of electronics systems. In particular, this review introduces and summarizes progress in the development of the tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) including its origin, current experimental and theoretical performance relative to the metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET), basic current-transport theory, design tradeoffs, and fundamental challenges. The promise of the TFET is in its ability to provide higher drive current than the MOSFET as supply voltages approach 0.1 V.

1,389 citations


"Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...TFET has emerged as a prominent candidate to mitigate the supply voltage scaling challenge [7], [8]....

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  • ...3) exhibit promising performance with a simultaneous enhancement of the and ratio by taking advantages of the hetero-band alignment [7]–[11], [33]....

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Journal ArticleDOI
03 Nov 2009
TL;DR: Experimental results show the existence of an optimum transistor size in accordance with the output loading conditions and the peak PCE increases with a decrease in operation frequency and with an increase in output load resistance.
Abstract: A high-efficiency CMOS rectifier circuit for UHF RFIDs was developed. The rectifier has a cross-coupled bridge configuration and is driven by a differential RF input. A differential-drive active gate bias mechanism simultaneously enables both low ON-resistance and small reverse leakage of diode-connected MOS transistors, resulting in large power conversion efficiency (PCE), especially under small RF input power conditions. A test circuit of the proposed differential-drive rectifier was fabricated with 0.18 mu m CMOS technology, and the measured performance was compared with those of other types of rectifiers. Dependence of the PCE on the input RF signal frequency, output loading conditions and transistor sizing was also evaluated. At the single-stage configuration, 67.5% of PCE was achieved under conditions of 953 MHz, - 12.5 dBm RF input and 10 KOmega output load. This is twice as large as that of the state-of-the-art rectifier circuit. The peak PCE increases with a decrease in operation frequency and with an increase in output load resistance. In addition, experimental results show the existence of an optimum transistor size in accordance with the output loading conditions. The multi-stage configuration for larger output DC voltage is also presented.

432 citations


"Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..." refers background or result in this paper

  • ...Many works have studied the CMOS RF rectifier design for RFID applications [19]–[24]....

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  • ...5% PCE at dBm in [24]), which has been widely adopted by the UHF RFID applications....

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  • ...9(b) shows the H4T rectifier derived from the standard cross-coupled CMOS rectifier with the dynamic threshold voltage “cancelation” technique [24]....

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  • ...PCE versus the input RF power from the recently reported CMOS RF rectifier designs for RFID and energy harvesting applications [24]–[43]....

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  • ...Later, the 4-T cross-coupled CMOS rectifier [22], [24] with a dynamic- -cancellation scheme has shown a significant improvement of PCE compared to the previous designs (e....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: A noninvasive wireless sensor platform for continuous health monitoring that is wirelessly powered and achieves a measured glucose range of 0.05-1 mM with a sensitivity of 400 Hz/mM while consuming 3 μW from a regulated 1.2-V supply is presented.
Abstract: This paper presents a noninvasive wireless sensor platform for continuous health monitoring. The sensor system integrates a loop antenna, wireless sensor interface chip, and glucose sensor on a polymer substrate. The IC consists of power management, readout circuitry, wireless communication interface, LED driver, and energy storage capacitors in a 0.36-mm2 CMOS chip with no external components. The sensitivity of our glucose sensor is 0.18 μA·mm-2·mM-1. The system is wirelessly powered and achieves a measured glucose range of 0.05-1 mM with a sensitivity of 400 Hz/mM while consuming 3 μW from a regulated 1.2-V supply.

384 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The measured RF power-up threshold (in 0.18-mum, at 1 muW load) was 6 muWplusmn10%, closely matching the predicted value of 5.2 muW.
Abstract: We investigate theoretical and practical aspects of the design of far-field RF power extraction systems consisting of antennas, impedance matching networks and rectifiers. Fundamental physical relationships that link the operating bandwidth and range are related to technology dependent quantities like threshold voltage and parasitic capacitances. This allows us to design efficient planar antennas, coupled resonator impedance matching networks and low-power rectifiers in standard CMOS technologies (0.5-mum and 0.18-mum) and accurately predict their performance. Experimental results from a prototype power extraction system that operates around 950 MHz and integrates these components together are presented. Our measured RF power-up threshold (in 0.18-mum, at 1 muW load) was 6 muWplusmn10%, closely matching the predicted value of 5.2 muW.

284 citations


"Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..." refers methods or result in this paper

  • ...[22] has employed the voltage boosting technique in a sub-threshold CMOS Dickenson charge pump to optimize the dc output voltage with a sensitivity down to dBm, whereas the PCE has not been studied....

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  • ...Later, the 4-T cross-coupled CMOS rectifier [22], [24] with a dynamic- -cancellation scheme has shown a significant improvement of PCE compared to the previous designs (e....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the transient response of double-gate thin-body-silicon interband tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) with its metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor counterpart was compared.
Abstract: We compare the transient response of double-gate thin-body-silicon interband tunnel field-effect transistor (TFET) with its metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor counterpart. Due to the presence of source side tunneling barrier, the silicon TFETs exhibit enhanced Miller capacitance, resulting in large voltage overshoot/undershoot in its large-signal switching characteristics. This adversely impacts the performance of Si TFETs for digital logic applications. It is shown that TFETs based on lower bandgap and lower density of states materials like indium arsenide show significant improvement in switching behavior due to its lower capacitance and higher ON current at reduced voltages.

198 citations


"Tunnel FET RF Rectifier Design for ..." refers background in this paper

  • ...HTFETs also exhibit enhanced on-state Miller capacitance effect [44], [45] where the gate-drain capacitance...

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