Fully Integrated High Efficiency High Configurability High Power Density DC-DC Converter

DC-DC converters are used in most of electronic devices and they play key roles to deliver power from supplies to loads. They act as the main power valves to control the energy delivery and energy usage efficiency of the systems.

Despite recent advances on various DC-DC conversion techniques, off-chip inductors and flying capacitors are usually indispensable [1], which largely increase the system size, counter to miniaturization when employed in autonomous sensors and IoT applications. Although some work achieves fully integrated designs with inductors and capacitors implemented on-chip, the large on-chip inductance and capacitance make the chip area extremely large, which significantly reduces the power density [2].

In this project, we are going to design a fully integrated, highly efficient, configurable DC-DC converter with high power density targeting at autonomous wireless sensor applications. The proposed converter can dynamically configure the conversion ratio while maintaining high efficiency according to power supply and demand levels.

[1] K. Wei, et al., "11.1 A Direct 12V/24V-to-1V 3W 91.2%-Efficiency Tri-State DSD Power Converter with Online VCF Rebalancing and In-Situ Precharge Rate Regulation," 2020 ISSCC, pp. 190-192

[2] P. H. McLaughlin, et al., "11.2 A Fully Integrated Resonant Switched-Capacitor Converter with 85.5% Efficiency at 0.47W Using On-Chip Dual-Phase Merged-LC Resonator," 2020 ISSCC, pp. 192-194

Assignment

1. Literature review of DC-DC converter topologies.
2. Design of a fully integrated CMOS circuit for the proposed DC-DC converter. Tape-out is possible depending on the design and available time.

Requirements

Student should be familiar with analog IC design and Cadence environment.

Contact

dr. Sijun Du

Electronic Instrumentation Group

Department of Microelectronics

Last modified: 2021-11-11