A low breakdown-voltage charge pump based on Cockcroft-Walton structure

Abstract

A Cockcroft-Walton type charge pump circuit is proposed in this paper. Compared with Dickson type, each transistor and capacitor in the proposed circuit just stand against the voltage less than one Vdd, so that a low break-down voltage process can be applied to this kind of charge pump to reduce the chip area cost and break-down risk. By using the proposed structure, the performances of voltage boosting efficiency and power efficiency can reach 98.9% and 87%.