Design of Low-Cost Energy Harvesting and Delivery Systems for Self-Powered Devices: Application to Authentication IC

This thesis investigates the development of low-cost energy harvesting and delivery systems for low-power low-duty-cycle devices. Initially, we begin by designing a power management scheme for on-demand power delivery. The baseline implementation is also used to identify critical challenges for low-power energy harvesting. We further propose a robust self-powered energy harvesting and delivery system (EHDS) design as a solution to achieve energy autonomy in standalone systems. The design demonstrates a complete ecosystem for low-overhead pulse-frequency modulated (PFM) harvesting while reducing harvesting window confinement and overall implementation footprint. Two transient-based models are developed for improved accuracy during design space exploration and optimization for both PFM power conversion and energy harvesting. Finally, a low-power authentication IC is demonstrated and projected designs for self-powered System-on-Chips (SoCs) are presented. The proposed designs are proto-typed in two test-chips in a 65nm CMOS process and measurement data showcase improved performance in terms of battery power, cold-start duration, passives (inductance and capacitance) needed, and end-to-end harvesting/conversion efficiency.Ph.D