RF-DC Multiplier for RF Energy Harvester based on 32nm and TFET technologies

Abstract

In this work, we are studying the effect of the technology scaling for different full-wave rectifier topologies using the Cross-Coupled Differential Drive (CCDD) strategy to implement a multiplier. For a conventional CCDD scaling from 90nm to 32nm, the PCE and VCE are maintained the same while a large degradation of the dynamic range and sensitivity are observed. This effect could be slightly limited by using a self-body bias CCDD topology. However, the use of TFET enables to avoid this degradation and provide a large VCE and output voltage for input voltage lower than 300mV. To extend this VCE for input voltage > 300mV, we use a CCDD topology increasing the loading drive capability. Interestingly, this resulted not only on increasing the output voltage for large Vin but also demonstrated larger PCE than expected for this topology.