A CMOS full-wave rectifer with threshold compensation based on inherent body-voltage control

An RF rectifier operating at 868 MHz is presented, which uses a threshold-voltage compensation based on an inherent control of the body voltage. Indeed, the proposed solution enhances circuit performance in terms of power conversion efficiency (PCE) and sensitivity, by properly driving transistor bulks without additional components. A 10-stage CMOS full-wave rectifier was implemented in a 0.13-μm CMOS technology for a typical RF harvesting application. The circuit is capable of delivering 2.4 V and 1 μA to the output load, while achieving a PCE performance of 38% with an RF input power as low as -22 dBm.