Chapter 2 Switch Core Design 2.1 Original Topology ‘The switching cell of this work adopts the famous cross-coupled topology which was first proposed by Y. Nakagome et al. [14] vpp vpb T T Wy rt MI M2 rm rT ic el Figure 2.1. Cross-coupled charge pump topology‘As shown in Figure 2.1, the clock system generates two non-overlapping clocks and feeds them to the bottom plate of the capacitors, At steady state, during phase one, the clock signal boosts C, up. If'we assume C, has already been charged to Vpp during the previous phase and the clock signal swing is Vpp. the voltage level at the top plate of C, goes to 2Vpp and meanwhile PMOS M3 turns on, and C, discharges to the load. At the same time, the bottom plate of C; is grounded ‘and NMOS M2 tums on and PMOS M4 turns off since the gate of M2 which is also the gate of M4 goes to 2Vpp. This makes C, charge up to Vpp and be ready to be discharged. During phase two, the flying capacitors C, and C, swap their roles: the gate of NMOS M1 (which is also the gate of PMOS M3) going high turns M1 on and MG off, so C, gets charged; the gate of NMOS. M2 and PMOS M4 reduces to approximately Vpp, turning M2 off and M4 on, and C» gets discharged to the load We choose NMOS devices for the charging path because they provide automatic junction bias. ‘We use PMOS devices for the output switch to avoid the threshold voltage drop from the pumping capacitors to the output capacitor because there is no higher voltage beyond 2Vpp, Interestingly, as we can see in this topology, all the four switches are driven internally. To make the cireuit work in low-voltage design as proposed, some modifications should be made. 2.2 Switch Resistance Reduction ‘The topology is originally proposed in application of DRAM design [14]. Scholars discovered the potential of it and made adjustments. Since the driving signals of the switches for both the charging path NMOS transistors and the discharging path PMOS transistors are generated from the top plates of the pumping capacitors, they are unstable and subject to overdrive shrinking, u