Design of a Boost DC–DC Converter With 82-mV Startup Voltage and Fully Built-in Startup Circuits for Harvesting Thermoelectric Energy

In this letter, a boost dc-dc converter with fully built-in startup circuits has been proposed as a thermoelectric energy harvester. The proposed chip was fabricated using a 0.18-μm 1P6M mixed-signal standard CMOS process. Neither post-fabrication trimming nor additional external components are needed to startup the converter. Moreover, a new type of low-leakage logic gates is proposed for lowering the minimal startup voltage, and several low-voltage startup circuits are also proposed. According to the measured results, the minimal startup voltage is only 82 mV, and the input voltage range is 60-460 mV. The measured maximal input power is 2.7 mW, the measured quiescent power with 200-mV input voltage is 8.2 μW, and the measured peak efficiency is 78.55%.