Chip integrated fuel cell

Applications such as autonomous micro-systems for the monitoring of rooms or environmental parameters need – beside a sensor and a transmitter unit – an energy source for enabling the sensor function and for transmitting collected data to a receiver. A chip integrated energy source must accomplish different design related requirements. Because of the very limited space in a miniaturized system on a silicon chip, an integrated energy source must have a large volumetric energy density. With regard to the monolithic chip integration it should be possible to fabricate the energy source within a CMOS process. In addition, the energy source should be environmentally friendly, meaning that the energy source must be built up only from non-toxic materials. This paper presents a novel realization of a self-breathing chip integrated fuel cell which offers the opportunity to meet these requirements. A first generation prototype of the chip integrated fuel cell was built up and its working principle could be proved. This first generation prototype had an operating time of 170 h, and the mean open-circuit voltage was 0.533 V.