A CMOS Compatible MEMS-based Voltage Multiplier for On-chip Generation of Large DC Voltages

Operation of many electrostatically-activated MEMS devices, such as signal processors and inertia! sensors, is reliant on the on-chip availability of large DC voltage (>50 V). Although, voltage multipliers are suitable structures for achieving high DC voltages, the reduced junction breakdown-voltage of today's CMOS technology and body-effect complications restrict the maximum output voltage of these integrated circuits to voltages lower than the required. In order to circumvent these restrictions, a micro-electromechanical switch architecture is proposed to replace the ordinary MOS-based voltage multipliers. In this paper, required modifications to the conventional voltage multiplier architecture are proposed. A study on the suitable switch configuration is also reported.