Comparison of selected architectures of negative Charge Pumps with new design

Abstract

The current trend of maximum reduction of the power consumption of electronic devices, motivated by limited battery voltage and long-life operation requirement, leads to a low power, low voltage technology. However, there are still many blocks that cannot work or do not work “satisfactorily” at low voltages. As an alternative to conventional DC/DC converters are used Charge Pumps. Charge Pumps have particularly small size, easy integrability and higher working frequency than conventional DC/DC converters. That is why the Charge Pumps are now integral parts of integrated circuits that contain blocks requiring the voltages in the extent of up to tens of volts. The integration of Charge Pumps directly into the system allows manufacturers to feed a complex system with many specific power requirements from a single source. Charge Pump efficiency is reduced by threshold voltage, stray capacitance, the time constant affected by channel resistance, etc. This paper is concentrated on comparison of some various architectures of negative Charge Pumps with new design. So output voltage, rise time, number of transistors and other parameters various architectures of negative Charge Pumps are compared by simulation executed by Mentor Graphics.