A Radio-Frequency Cross-Connected Rectifier With LC Source Degeneration

This paper proposes a radio-frequency (RF) cross-connected (CC) rectifier with LC source degeneration (CCLC). The LC network resonates at twice of the working RF frequency, shaping the drain-source and gate-source voltages of the rectifying transistors of the CC rectifier. As a result, the proposed scheme reduces the transistors’ reverse current and the shoot-through current, and thus the root mean square current of the switches, improving the power conversion efficiency (PCE). Meanwhile, it has a better input impedance matching over a wide input power range from the voltage reshaping. Subsequently, we implement the CCLC topology in both one-stage and two-stage CC rectifiers. To reduce the silicon area, we design coupled inductors for the two LC networks of the two-stage CCLC rectifier. We fabricated the rectifiers using a 65-nm CMOS process. The measured PCE of the one-stage and two-stage rectifiers are 67.6% and 61.2%, respectively. The proposed scheme has a wider dynamic range than previous works.