Charge pump circuit

1. Field of the Invention A charge pump circuit includes, in a preferred embodiment, a plurality of serially-connected pump stages, each of which is driven by one or more associated clock signals for the stage. The amplitude of the clock signals associated with a respective one of the pump stages differ in amplitude from that of the clock signals associated with at least one other pump stage. As a result, the additional voltage achieved by each successive pump stage may be progressively larger for each successive pump stage. An exemplary charge pump circuit provides clock signals which increase in amplitude with each successive pump stage, and provides with each successive pump stage an output voltage having a magnitude that is a multiplicative factor of the magnitude of the input voltage for the stage. Consequently, the output voltage achieved by the exemplary charge pump circuit is an exponential function of the number of pump stages within the charge pump circuit.