High efficiency CMOS rectifier for energy harvesting

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the efficiency of AC-DC low voltage rectifier using CMOS technology. The investigation focused on the topology part of the rectifier circuit as part of study for derivation of small signal model in developing regulation control in CMOS converter for low energy and frequency application. The CMOS rectifier circuit was designed and simulated using two PMOS and two NMOS. This circuit was compared with the conventional rectifier circuit using bridge diodes. The input voltage and operating frequency for both circuits were set at 1.0 V and 50 Hz respectively. The performances in terms of voltage drop for both circuits were observed. It was found that the CMOS rectifier has successfully improved the voltage drop by 69.65% compared to the diode rectifier bridge circuit.