Highly-Efficient Low-Voltage-Operation Charge Pump Circuits Using Bootstrapped Gate Transfer Switches

Abstract

This paper describes highly efficient on-chip high-voltage multipliers using charge pump circuits. The proposed charge pump circuits use bootstrapped gate transfer switches to avoid the threshold voltage drop in conventional Dickson charge pump circuits and enables them to generate a given voltage with a smaller number of pumping stages, which results in higher efficiency. The SPICE simulation results show that the proposed circuits have high pumping gain, are suitable for low-voltage operation, and have ample current drive capability.