Title:  Efficient Power Management Circuits for Energy Harvesting Applications

Committee:

Dr. Saibal Mukhopadhyay, ECE, Chair , Advisor

Dr. Madhavan Swaminathan, ECE

Dr. Arijit Raychowdhury, ECE

Dr. Abhijit Chatterjee, ECE

Dr. Vivek De, Intel

Abstract: 

Energy harvesting is emerging as a critical system characteristics with the increasing use of mobile and remote electronics. Harvesting on-site energy creates energy autonomy the prolongs the operation life-time and improves system economy. To process and deliver the harvested energy, these electronics rely on power management unit (PMU). These PMUs in energy harvesting applications must overcome some specific challenges which are different than other application areas. 
This thesis focuses on some major challenges of designing efficient PMUs for low voltage, low power energy harvesting applications. Several design innovations  are proposed to overcome those challenges. High duty cycle oscillator for increased conversion ratio, bias gating for self-consumption minimization, inductor multiplexing for reduced footprint and multiple output generation for  simultaneous multi-domain power delivery will be discussed.   Several prototype chips are developed demonstrating the proposed methods and, results from those chips are presented in this thesis.