A nano-power energy harvesting IC for arrays of piezoelectric transducers

This paper describes a multi-source energy harvester IC for arrays of independent transducers, designed in a 0.32um STMicroelectronics BCD technology, that can manage up to 5 AC-DC channels (e.g. piezoelectric transducers). The IC implements a boost converter based on synchronous electrical charge extraction. A single external inductor is time-shared among all transducers and access conflicts are handled by an arbiter circuit implemented as an asynchronous FSM. The converter is fully autonomous and suitable for battery-less operation. The circuit area is 4.6 mm^2 and has a power consumption of 175 nW/source at 2.5 V while efficiency ranges between 70% and over than 85%