Miniature Power Sources

Integrated microbatteries are currently being developed to provide reliable low noise power sources for SOC and imaging applications by Jet Propulsion Labs. These microbatteries help provide localized current capacities or embedded power supplies at the chip level for space exploration. The microbatteries used for the design are rated at 50nAH capacity and are solid state lithium electrolyte based. This book presents a design approach for charging and discharging such integrated microbatteries, laboratory measurements taken to characterize these unique power cells and finally about the design, development and simulation of a power management system dealing with these microscopic power cells. The switch array system helps attain any random grouping pattern between the microbatteries. In this case,the result is an ability to charge microbatteries in parallel and to discharge microbatteries in parallel or pairs of microbatteries in series. This is achieved by providing the appropriate gate/bulk voltages to a switching matrix. The designs are built using 0.35um SOI process rules.