Comparison of charge pump and boost circuits for high voltage & low power voltage conversions

High voltage and low current power signals are required by a number of applications (i.e. electrostatic/polymer actuators, reconfigurable antennas etc.) for their proper operation. These devices need more than hundred volts and their required current is in the range of tens of μA to few mA. The charge pump and the boost circuit are two potential converters which can provide this power. In this work a charge pump and a multistage boost converter, capable of 5V-400V (DC-DC) conversion, are designed in a 1 μm SOI process (xdh10). Pros & Cons of these converters are discussed and their performance is compared by using post layout simulations. Through this comparison it is found that although the multistage boost converter requires some off-chip components, but for high voltage gain its chip size and performance is better than the charge pump circuit. Considering these results, the multistage boost chip is fabricated and its test results are found to be in-close proximity of the post layout simulation results.