Ultra-Low Power Subthreshold Quasi Floating Gate CMOS Logic Family for Energy Harvesting

Subthreshold digital circuits are suitable for application niches where high performance is not required, but extremely low power consumption is a must. One of the most relevant applications of this kind nowadays is energy harvesting, where self-powered devices experience severe energy constraints. In this paper, a subthreshold CMOS logic family is proposed based on the Quasi-Floating Gate transistor, aimed to the design of different subcircuits required in energy harvesting. Measurement results of a test chip prototype confirm the feasibility of this approach.