A CMOS current starved VCO for energy harvesting applications

This work presents a current starved voltage-controlled oscillator based on standard 0.13μm CMOS process. Integrated within a power management circuit, the proposed oscillator provides an average periodic signal with a frequency of 84.81kHz. Additionally, to assure a stable periodic signal from the environmental instability a voltage reference is designed. The proposed architecture makes full use of subthreshold and deep triode MOSFETs to avoid the employment of any passive component. A voltage reference exhibits an output reference of 258.34mV in response to a 1.0-3.2V voltage supply. It shows a line sensitivity of 0.49%/V at 27°C. The output of the architecture leads to a robust time-control local oscillator, which can be employed in power management circuit for energy harvesting systems and be used on wireless sensor networks and implantable medical devices.This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 61531008). Also was supported by RFF Forskningsfond Oslofjordfondet, Praktisk og effektiv oppflging av KOLS-pasienter i kommunene (Project No. 285575), and Pålitelig termisk styringssystem for BEV-batteripakker: intelligent og modulær løsning (Project No. 293808). Authors also acknowledge the support from Chongqing Research Program of Basic Research and Frontier Technology (Project No. cstc2018jcyjAX0474) and Chongqing Education Commission - Science and Technology Research Program (Project Nos. KJZD-K201800802, KJZD-K201900802)