Improving IC power efficiency by implementing charge recycling in Dickson charge pumps with multiple pumping branches

The power efficiency and performance of fully integrated charge pumps are highly dependent on the types of capacitors used in the pumping stages. A sample but not so well-known circuit technique that can minimize power losses is charge recycling applied to the parasitic capacitors always allocated with the useful capacitors at the core of every pumping stage. This paper discusses the possibility of applying the charge recycling mechanism to Dickson charge pumps using two pumping chains (branches) working in anti-phase. The requirement of choosing an even number of pumping stages during the charge pump design phase is no more necessary so that the technique is applicable to charge pumps having an odd number of stages as well.