# TFET-Based Power Management Circuit for RF Energy Harvesting

David Cavalheiro, Francesc Moll, Stanimir Valtchev

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

21 Citations (Scopus)

## Abstract

This paper proposes a Tunnel FET (TFET)-based power management circuit (PMC) for ultra-low power RF energy harvesting applications. In contrast with conventional thermionic devices, the band-to-band tunneling mechanism of TFETs allows a better switching performance at sub-0.2 V operation. As a result, improved efficiencies in RF-powered circuits are achieved, thanks to increased rectification performance at low power levels and to the reduced energy required for a proper PMC operation. It is shown by simulations that heterojunction TFET devices designed with III-V materials can improve the rectification process at received power levels below-20 dBm (915 MHz) when compared to the application of homojunction III-V TFETs and Si FinFETs. For an available power of-25 dBm, the proposed converter is able to deliver 1.1 ${\mu }\text{W}$ of average power (with 0.5 V) to the output load with a boost efficiency of 86%.

Original language English 7742921 7-17 11 IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society 5 1 https://doi.org/10.1109/JEDS.2016.2619908 Published - 1 Jan 2017

## Keywords

• Energy harvesting
• power management