Model of integrated micro photovoltaic cell structures for harvesting supplied microsystems in 0.35-µm CMOS technology

In this paper we present a micro photovoltaic cell model, validated by the experimental results obtained from a test chip realized in 0.35-µm CMOS technology. In particular, we analyzed and modeled the behavior of an integrated p-n junction when irradiated with incident light with solar spectrum, considering the parameters of a conventional 0.35-µm CMOS technology. We considered the effect of irradiation on the basic diode equation, which allows the estimation of the carrier photo-generation as a function of the geometrical parameters of the micro photovoltaic cell. This model is particularly useful to predict the available harvested power that can be delivered to an on-chip integrated microsystem. Based on the proposed model, we also developed an equivalent circuit of the micro photovoltaic cells, that can be used with circuit simulators to evaluate the performance of complete microsystems. The test chip realized to validate the model consists of a set of different integrated micro photovoltaic cells.

[1]  Rajeevan Amirtharajah,et al.  Energy harvesting photodiodes with integrated 2D diffractive storage capacitance , 2008, Proceeding of the 13th international symposium on Low power electronics and design (ISLPED '08).

[2]  Abhiman Hande,et al.  Indoor solar energy harvesting for sensor network router nodes , 2007, Microprocess. Microsystems.

[3]  Mani B. Srivastava,et al.  Harvesting aware power management for sensor networks , 2006, 2006 43rd ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference.

[4]  Henning Früchting,et al.  Investigation of planar antennas with photovoltaic solar cells for mobile communications , 2004, 2004 IEEE 15th International Symposium on Personal, Indoor and Mobile Radio Communications (IEEE Cat. No.04TH8754).

[5]  E. Dallago,et al.  Integrated micro-solar cell structures for harvesting supplied microsystems in 0.35-µm CMOS technology , 2009, 2009 IEEE Sensors.

[6]  J. Sakai,et al.  High efficiency organic solar cells by screen printing method , 2005, Conference Record of the Thirty-first IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference, 2005..

[7]  Gábor Mezösi,et al.  Sensor powering with integrated MOS compatible solar cell array , 2006, 2006 IEEE Design and Diagnostics of Electronic Circuits and systems.

[8]  Andreas G. Andreou,et al.  Photo-battery fabricated in silicon on sapphire CMOS , 2008 .

[9]  David L. Churchill,et al.  Power management for energy harvesting wireless sensors , 2005, SPIE Smart Structures and Materials + Nondestructive Evaluation and Health Monitoring.

[10]  Rajeevan Amirtharajah,et al.  Integrated Solar Energy Harvesting and Storage , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) Systems.