Self-suspended vibration-driven energy harvesting chip for power density maximization

This work introduces a new concept to integrate energy-harvesting devices with the aim of improving their throughput, mainly in terms of scavenged energy density and frequency tunability. This concept, named energy harvester in package (EHiP), is focused on the heterogeneous integration of a MEMS die, dedicated to scavenging energy, with an auxiliary chip, which can include the control and power management circuitry, sensors and RF transmission capabilities. The main advantages are that the whole die can be used as an inertial mass and the chip area usage is optimized. An estimated maximum generated power of around 11 μW has been obtained for an input vibration acceleration of ∼10 m s−2 when the energy harvester operates in a constant-charge cycle for the best-case scenario.
Smart Mater. Struct. 24 (2015) 115027 (10pp).