A Comparative Study of Stacked-Diode Configurations Operating in the Photovoltaic Region

This article presents a detailed comparative analysis of two possible stacked-diode configurations operating as solar cells. The performance of a single <italic>p-well</italic> – <italic>deep n-well</italic> diode is compared with the combination of such diode with a <italic>n-diff</italic>–<italic>p-well</italic> diode in parallel. Both configurations occupy the same area but offer different performance and, accordingly, they can have different application scopes. A test circuit to gauge the diodes performance and their spectral sensitivity has been integrated along with the two diode configurations in a <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.18~\mu \text{m}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> CMOS standard fabrication technology. The measured experimental results for the two diode configurations under study are validated with an analytical diode physical model.

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