A 1.2V-5V High Efficiency CMOS Charge Pump for Non-Volatile Memories

A new charge pump circuit is presented: it is based on PMOS pass transistors with dynamic control of the gate and body voltages. By controlling the gate and the bulk of each pass-transistor, the voltage loss due to the device threshold is removed and the charge is pumped from one stage to the other with negligible voltage drop. Compared to conventional charge pumps, it exhibits a larger output voltage and better power efficiency still retaining a simple two-phase clocking scheme. The architecture is based on low-voltage transistors and the voltage drop among the device terminals does not exceed the supply voltage. Measurements performed on a 4-stage charge pump, fabricated exploiting a ST 130nm CMOS process, are provided.