IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society (Jan 2017)

TFET-Based Power Management Circuit for RF Energy Harvesting

  • David Cavalheiro,
  • Francesc Moll,
  • Stanimir Valtchev

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/JEDS.2016.2619908
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 5, no. 1
pp. 7 – 17

Abstract

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This paper proposes a Tunnel FET (TFET)-based power management circuit (PMC) for ultra-low power RF energy harvesting applications. In contrast with conventional thermionic devices, the band-to-band tunneling mechanism of TFETs allows a better switching performance at sub-0.2 V operation. As a result, improved efficiencies in RF-powered circuits are achieved, thanks to increased rectification performance at low power levels and to the reduced energy required for a proper PMC operation. It is shown by simulations that heterojunction TFET devices designed with III-V materials can improve the rectification process at received power levels below -20 dBm (915 MHz) when compared to the application of homojunction III-V TFETs and Si FinFETs. For an available power of -25 dBm, the proposed converter is able to deliver 1.1 μW of average power (with 0.5 V) to the output load with a boost efficiency of 86%.

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