| dc.description.abstract |
In this article, for the first time, we present
the improvement in efficiency in a low-voltage dc–dc boost
converter for the energy-harvesting applications using
the experimentally demonstrated sub-50-mV nano electromechanical
switch (NEMS).As per themeasurement results,
the sub-50-mV NEMS having a small air gap of only 100 nm
exhibits very low hysteresis (<20 mV), low turn-on delay
(15 ns), and low sub-threshold swing of 2 mV/decade.
In addition to this, the fabricated NEMS is a propitious
candidate toward ideal power switch with almost zero leakage
current and a maximum ON-state conductance value
of 0.1 A/(V·μm). This study explores a discontinuousconductionmode
(DCM) boost converterwith specifications
suitable for energy-harvestingapplicationsusing theNEMSbased
design. The results are compared with the corresponding
design using the MOSFET switches in 0.18-μm
CMOS technology. This work illustrates that the NEMSbased
DCM boost converter design has an improvement
in the efficiency of around 30% at a switching frequency
of 10 kHz over CMOS for the same ON-state resistance.
This is because the proposed fabricated NEMS has extreme
low pull-in voltage (50 mV) and low parasitic capacitances
( 3.3 fF/μm). |
en_US |