An ultra-low-power CMOS supercapacitor storage unit for energy harvesting applicationsAn ultra-low-power CMOS supercapacitor storage unit for energy harvesting applications Peer-Reviewed Journal Publication Δημοσίευση σε Περιοδικό με Κριτές 2022-10-062021enThis research was co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union and Greek national funds through the Operational Program Competitiveness, Entrepreneurship and Innovation, under the call RESEARCH—CREATE—INNOVATE (project code: T1EDK-00360).This work presents an ultra-low-power CMOS supercapacitor storage unit suitable for a plethora of low-power autonomous applications. The proposed unit exploits the unregulated voltage output of harvesting circuits (i.e., DC-DC converters) and redirects the power to the storage elements and the working loads. Being able to adapt to the input energy conditions and the connected loads’ supply demands offers extended survival to the system with the self-startup operation and voltage regulation. A low-complexity control unit is implemented which is composed of power switches, comparators and logic gates and is able to supervise two supercapacitors, a small and a larger one, as well as a backup battery. Two separate power outputs are offered for external load connection which can be controlled by a separate unit (e.g., microcontroller). Furthermore, user-controlled parameters such as charging and discharging supercapacitor voltage thresholds, provide increased versatility to the system. The storage unit was designed and fabricated in a 0.18 um standard CMOS process and operates with ultra-low current consumption of 432 nA at 2.3 V. The experimental results validate the proper operation of the overall structure. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Electronics1017Gogolou_et_al_Electronics_10(17)_2021.pdfChania [Greece]Library of TUC2022-10-06application/pdf6.7 MBfree Gogolou Vasiliki Kozalakis Konstantinos Koutroulis Eftychios Κουτρουλης Ευτυχιος Doumenis Gregory Siskos Stylianos MDPI Energy harvesting On-chip integration Power management Supercapacitor Storage unit