Charge-pumping with finger capacitance in a custom electrostatic energy harvesting ASIC

We present an integrated circuit capable of scavenging energy from repetitive changes in finger touch capacitance. A finger tapping on this ASIC generates a capacitive change of approximately 770pF. These changes feed into a charge-pump circuit which stores 320pJ of energy on a 1nF storage capacitor. We present measurement results and simulations that demonstrate operation. As a proof-of-concept, we also demonstrate that the harvested energy can power a ring oscillator which outputs a series of chirps with frequencies ranging from 80Hz to 30kHz as the storage capacitor voltage charges and discharges.

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