A frequency boosting technique for cold-start charge pump units

A novel frequency boosting design technique for charge pump architectures is proposed, enabling high speed performance with no additional circuitry or design complexity. The charge pump's oscillator exploits the boosted output voltage of the topology, to provide higher switching frequency to the pumping capacitors. A Dickson charge pump using native NMOS devices is designed and fabricated in XFAB 0.18-mu m process, as a product vehicle. The proposed solution is theoretically analyzed and compared to the standard approach. Mathematical analysis, together with simulation results and hardware measurements confirm the validity of the proposed technique, as well as its advantages versus the standard design methodology.

Automated summary

A novel frequency boosting design technique is proposed for charge pump architectures to achieve high-speed performance without additional circuitry or design complexity. Simulation results and hardware measurements confirm the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed technique.