Low‐power FinFET based boost converter design using dynamic threshold body biasing technique

Abstract

AbstractThe recent development in the field of sustainable energy solution for ultra‐low power application is attracting the attention of researchers. This paper is themed on the boosting of input harvested voltage from micro thermo‐electric generator to an appropriate output voltage level. This research proposed an optimized DC–DC boost converter design comprising of cross‐coupled FinFET based LC resonant oscillator and FinFET three‐stage charge pump circuit. The design utilizes the dynamic threshold body biasing technique to control the threshold voltage of FinFET switches and enhance the performance in sub‐threshold region. This design succeeded in achieving 29.25% peak power conversion efficiency to generate 438 mV output voltage from 96 mV minimum input voltage while consuming 344 nW of power only. Further, the proposed boost converter shows peak voltage conversion efficiency of 53.51% and settling time of 121 μS for 1% band. The performance of proposed boost converter observed for rigorous process, temperature and load variations is within acceptable limits. In contrast to MOSFET technology, the adopted 18 nm FinFET technology make the proposed design excellent to tackle the challenges of short channel effects in ultra‐low power application.