A Low-Power, Fully Integrated SC DC-DC Step-Up Converter with Phase-Reduced Soft-Charging Technique for Fully Implantable Neural Interfaces

We present a high-power conversion efficiency (PCE) on-chip switched-capacitor (SC) DC-DC step-up converter for a fully implantable neural interface operating with less than a few tens mu W from energy harvesting. To improve the PCE in such light loads and wide variations of voltage-conversion ratio (VCR), which is a typical scenario for ultra-low-power fully implantable systems depending on energy harvesting, a phase-reduced soft-charging technique has been implemented in a step-up converter, thereby achieving very low VCR-sensitive PCE variation compared with other state-of-the-art works. The proposed DC-DC converter has been fabricated in a standard 180 nm CMOS 1P6M process. It exhibits high PCE (similar to 80%) for wide input and output ranges from 0.5 V to 1.2 V and from 1.2 V to 1.8 V, respectively, with switching frequencies of 0.3-2 MHz, achieving a peak efficiency of 82.6% at 54 mu W loads.

Automated summary

In this study, a high-power conversion efficiency on-chip switched-capacitor DC-DC step-up converter is proposed for fully implantable neural interfaces. It operates with low power consumption from energy harvesting. By implementing a phase-reduced soft-charging technique, the efficiency of the converter is improved under light loads and wide variations of voltage-conversion ratio, which is common in ultra-low-power fully implantable systems.