Patent ID: 11862988
Assignee: STMICROELECTRONICS S.R.L.
Field: Electrical machinery, apparatus, energy (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 10:
11. A circuit, comprising:
a first radiofrequency-to-direct current (RF-to-DC) circuit configured to receive a radiofrequency signal at a first node and produce a first converted signal at a second node;
an energy storage circuit coupled to receive the first converted signal from the second node;
a second RF-to-DC circuit, wherein the second RF-to-DC circuit is a replica of the first RF-to-DC circuit scaled down by a scaling factor, configured to receive said radiofrequency signal at an input node and produce a second converted signal at a sensing node that is indicative of an open-circuit voltage at the second node of the first RF-to-DC circuit;
wherein said first RF-to-DC circuit comprises an integer number N of multiplication stages, and wherein at least one sub-set of said multiplication stages is selectively deactivatable;
a control circuit configured to:
i) perform a comparison of said second converted signal to a reference voltage and assert a control signal when said second converted signal is higher than said reference voltage; and
ii) selectively deactivate said sub-set of multiplication stages in response to assertion of control signal.