Description
Date depot: 11 avril 2023
Titre: CMOS integrated smart adaptive switched-capacitive converters for low power bateryless energy sources
Directeur de thèse:
Dimitri GALAYKO (LIP6)
Domaine scientifique: Sciences et technologies de l'information et de la communication
Thématique CNRS : Systèmes et architectures intégrés matériel-logiciel
Resumé: Sustainable power supply of low power autonomous devices such as medical implant, abandoned sensors, body area network device is a subject of active research in the field of microelectronic and microtechnologies. Use of batteries for such devices is not always convenient, since a battery needs a maintenance and a replacement. As an alternative, the supply energy can come from the environment (vibrations, RF, temperature gradient) or from a remote powering device (RF, magnetic or acoustic waves).
The proposed PhD project will be based on this expertise developed in the CIAN team in the design of integrated interfaces for small power energy sources. Its goal will be a development of DC-DC converter based on integrated switched-capacitor circuits having the following features:
Versatility: the input voltage of the energy source is not stable and depends on the environment conditions (for instance, the amplitude of vibrations). The output voltage is expected to be fixed: that requires a DC-DC convertor with variable gain, and that is a challenge for switched-capacitor circuits
Low power consumption (low power overhead): this is required for operation with sources generating only few tens of microwatts.
Compatibility with high voltage sources: that require a use of specific high-voltage CMOS technologies
Programmability and adaptability: a MPPT (Maximum Power Point Tracking) technique should be employed.
A particular interest for our research project represents an emulator of an inductor implemented with switched-capacitor networks. Such a structure can be efficiently used in a range of applications addressing optimal conditioning of capacitive harvesters. Such an emulation has never been implemented and represents an innovative point of the proposed PhD project.
This project will use the publicly available technology database provided by Cadence, known as Skywater 130nm Design Kit. Together with open-source CAD tools such as Magic, XSchem, and Coriolis, some of the blocks designed for the project will enrich the publicly available library of the blocks commonly used in power converters, so contributing to the world community of Open Hardware in microelectronics.