Monolithic Switched-Capacitor DC-DC Towards High Voltage Conversion Ratios

Recent research has introduced switched-capacitor DC-DC converters with voltage conversion ratios (VCR) of up to 8. Their ability to implement any given voltage conversion ratio at a duty cycle of 50% shows promise to employ them in very high voltage conversion ratio applications. This is due to the fact that the VCR is a result of the switched-capacitor topology being used, instead of the Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) duty cycle as is the case with inductive DC-DC converters. This work aims to investigate the potential and feasibility of switched-capacitor topologies towards a monolithically integrated high voltage conversion ratio switched-capacitor DC-DC converter. Essential topology parameters and metrics that influence performance in this context are identified and their relation as function of the voltage conversion ratio is investigated. A comparison over a set of well-performing SC topologies yields a clear result, demonstrating a topology that circumvents technological weakness with topological strength and vice versa.