A Fully Integrated, Automatically Generated DC–DC Converter Maintaining >75% Efficiency From 398 K Down to 23 K Across Wide Load Ranges in 12-nm FinFET

Abstract

This letter presents a fully integrated recursive successive-approximation switched capacitor (RSC) DC–DC converter implemented using an automatic cell-based layout generation in 12-nm FinFET technology. A novel design methodology is demonstrated based on the theoretical analyses of the optimal energy operation of the switched-capacitor (SC) DC–DC converter and directly finds the optimal design parameters from the given input specifications. The converter maintains >75% efficiency across a vast range of output currents and temperatures. Our design targets voltage scaling for applications, such as cryo-computing, cryo-sensing, and parts of quantum computing, to achieve high-system power efficiency.