The design, simulation and fabrication of a new and compact CMOS rectifier for RF energy harvesting

Electromagnetic energy is abundant in space and can be retrieved without limit. Electromagnetic waves come from a variety of resources such as satellite stations, wireless internet, radio stations, and digital multimedia broadcasting. A radio frequency power harvesting systems can capture and convert electromagnetic energy into a usable direct current (DC) voltage. The key units of an RF power harvesting systems are the antenna and rectifier circuit that allows the RF power to be converted into DC voltage that will be used to power IOT devices and wireless nodes in remote area. Energy harvesting system is an electronic device that can capture power from the environment and supply power to electronic devices like implantable, wireless monitoring devices and wireless sensor nodes. As stated before, there are different sources from which energy can be harvested. Many of them, especially those used for implantable applications, produces an output voltage of less than 300mV peak. Converting this low-level signal from AC to DC to operate the integrated circuits in implanted devices is a challenging task. The major intention of this project is to develop a compact CMOS rectifier that can convert small RF signal with high power conversion ratio to be used in energy harvesting systems for IoT and wireless sensors applications.