A Power Self-Sufficient Managed Energy Harvester With Dual-Source Synergistic Cold-Start Capability

Abstract

This brief presents a power self-sufficient managed dual-source energy harvester that prioritizes the harvested energy for self-consumption and then transfers the surplus energy to the load or storage, thereby avoiding paying more than harvesting when the environmental energy is weak. The bipolar stacking structure employed enables the simultaneous harvesting of both energy sources through time-division multiplexing in DCM or synchronized extraction in CCM. Additionally, this structure allows the dual sources to share a single cold starter, while also facilitating low-voltage startup. The proposed harvester, fabricated using a $0.18~\mu $ m CMOS process, achieves end-to-end peak efficiencies of 84.3% and 82.5% for photovoltaic and thermoelectric energy harvesting, respectively, while achieving a dual-source synergistic cold-start voltage as low as 80 mV.