A Power-Efficient Voltage Upconverter for Embedded EEPROM Application

This brief presents a power-efficient voltage upconverter applicable to a mobile electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM). The power dissipation is reduced by optimizing the three constituent blocks: the CMOS-type Dickson's charge pump, the level detector for the boosted power supply (V P P), and the level shifter. The power consumption of the V P P level detector is greatly reduced by employing an RC coupled voltage divider. The short-circuit current of the level shifter is eliminated by bootstrapping the gate nodes of stacked protection PMOSFETs. The voltage upconverter is implemented into a 768-bit EEPROMusing 0.18-mu m CMOS technology and dissipates about 20.2 mu W for regulation and consumption of V P P.