Photovoltaic Energy Harvester with Power Management System

Abstract

We present a photovoltaic energy harvester, realized in 0.35-μm CMOS technology. The proposed system collects light energy from the environment, by means of 2-mm2on-chip integrated microsolar cells, and accumulates it in an external capacitor. While the capacitor is charging, the load is disconnected. When the energy in the external capacitor is enough to operate the load for a predefined time slot, the load is connected to the capacitor by a power management circuit. The choice of the value of the capacitance determines the operating time slot for the load. The proposed solution is suitable for discrete-time-regime applications, such as sensor network nodes, or, in general, systems that require power supply periodically for short time slots. The power management circuit includes a charge pump, a comparator, a level shifter, and a linear voltage regulator. The whole system has been extensively simulated, integrated, and experimentally characterized.