YANG et al.: 0.2-V ENERGY-HARVESTING BLE TRANSMITTER WITH A MICROPOWER MANAGER 1361
entails another supply (0.7 or 1 V), which implies the need
of a power-management unit in the system level to interface
with the sub-0.5V energy-harvesting sources. Here, our type-I
analog PLL using a dynamic MSSF favors ULV operation and
reveals itself as very power efficient (0.29 mW/GHz excluding
the VCO). Our ULV VCO and PA are also competitive in
terms of RF performances. No external matching network is
necessary for the PA, and we were able to manage the sleep
power down to 5.2 nW via proper power-gating.
VI. C
ONCLUSION
This paper reported the design of a BLE TX aided by a
fully integrated μPM to allow direct powering by a single
0.2-V supply. The four key techniques are: 1) a μPM that
generates and stabilizes all internal biases and supplies against
V
DD,EH
variation, and provides an always-on negative voltage
as the gate bias of the VCO and PA suppress their leakage
power in the sleep mode; 2) an ULV VCO with gate-to-source
transformer coupling to enhance the output swing and improve
the PN; 3) an ULV Class-E/F
2
PA with an inside-transformer
LC notch to suppress the HD
3
; and 4) a type-I integer-N
analog PLL with an MSSF of 5% duty cycle to suppress the
jitter and reference spurs. Fabricated in 28-nm CMOS, the TX
achieves 25% system efficiency at 0-dBm P
out
, and the sleep
power is 5.2 nW. The open-loop GFSK modulation shows an
FSK error of 2.84%, and the output harmonics comply with the
BLE specification without resorting from any explicit filters or
external components.
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Shiheng Yang (S’15) received the B.Sc. degree in
electrical and electronics engineering from the Uni-
versity of Macau, Macau, China, in 2014, where he
is currently pursuing the Ph.D. degree in electronic
and computer engineering.
He received the SJM and Frank Wong Foundation
Scholarships for outstanding academic achievement.
He was the Founding Chairman of the Faculty
of Science and Technology Postgraduate Students,
University of Macau. His research interests include
analog/mixed IC designs and RF circuits, specializ-
inginthePLL.
Dr. Yang currently serves as a Reviewer for the IEEE J
OURNAL OF
SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS and the IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CIRCUITS AND
SYSTEMS I and II.
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