Smart Power Unit—mW-to-nW Power Management and Control for Self-Sustainable IoT Devices

Self-sustainability and intelligence will be critical features of the next generation of Internet of Things devices. Power management circuits need to be energy-efficient in multiple power modes, from nW sleep to mW active, and to support energy harvesting (EH) from multiple environmental sources. This article presents an adaptive and firmware-configurable power supply unit that enables intelligent devices to operate in the sub μW range while achieving self-sustainability through EH. The microcontroller-based design allows efficient conversion from batteries, dc, ac environmental sources, and nA quiescent currents. Source and load power points are decoupled with multiple dc-dc converters aiming to supply loads with adaptive voltage scaling and achieving high reliability. Experimental results show the flexibility and efficiency of this approach: the proposed power supply unit achieves a quiescent current of 54 nA and a maximum peak load current of 300 mA, delivered with an end-to-end power efficiency above 85%.