ABSTRACT
A functional energy harvesting (EH) system, both in terms of available power and compatibility with system integration requires concurrently addressing the energy transducing devices together with power management circuits. This chapter addresses the topic of power management circuits specific for harvesters, particularly emphasizing tight joint characterization, modeling and circuit co-design of the energy transducing devices and the power management frontend integrated circuits, in turn emphasizing vertical co-design for Internet of things applications. An EH consists of the transduction of ambient energy into electrical energy, in pursuit of self-powered electronic systems. Challenges for on-chip power management circuits targeting energy harvesting consist in the inclusion of sophisticated power processing functionality, due to the time-varying burst-mode energy harvesting source. When fully monolithic switching power converters are considered, for extreme miniaturization and integration, the main component that precludes such integration is the inductor.
