Patent ID: 8044705

Claim:
In a charge pump circuit having one or more stages each having an input and an output, a method of generating an output voltage for the charge pump circuit, comprising: receiving as the input of a first of said stages an input signal based on a clock signal; receiving as the input of each stage after the first the output of the preceding stage; and supplying the output of the last of said stages as the output voltage of the charge pump circuit, wherein each of the stages includes a capacitor element having first and second plates and the method further comprises: alternately operating each of the stages in a first phase and a second phase, the first phase including: regulating of a charge level on the second plate by a regulating voltage; and connecting the first plate to an external voltage supply, wherein the connecting the first plate to the external voltage supply comprises connecting the first plate to the external voltage supply by a switch controlled by a boosted version of the clock signal; and the second phase including: connecting the first plate to supply the stage's output; and connecting the second plate to receive the stage's input.