Patent ID: 8823443

Claim:
A charge-pump circuit, comprising a supply voltage input node for applying an input voltage to be boosted; a boosted voltage output node for outputting a boosted voltage; a plurality of transistor stages connected in series between the supply voltage input node and the boosted voltage output node; and wherein at least one transistor stage comprises a multiple-gate transistor, which transistor comprises at least a first gate and a second gate, of which the first gate is realized for switching the transistor on or off according to a voltage applied to the first gate, and the second gate is realized for dynamically controlling the threshold voltage of the multiple-gate transistor, independently of the first gate, according to a control voltage applied to the second gate, wherein the charge-pump circuit comprises a first control voltage input node for applying a first control voltage, a second control voltage input node for applying a second control voltage, an intermediate node for connecting the output of a transistor stage, which is connected to a source terminal or a drain terminal of a multiple-gate transistor of the transistor stage, to an input of a following transistor stage, which is connected to a source terminal or a drain terminal of a multiple-gate transistor of the following transistor stage, and a plurality of capacitors connected in parallel between intermediate nodes of adjacent transistor stages and the first or second control voltage input node, wherein the second gate of a particular transistor stage and the capacitor connected to the output of that particular transistor stage are connected to the same control voltage input node, wherein a supply voltage applied to an input node of the circuit is in the range 1 V to 1.1 V or the power dissipated by the circuit lies in the range 4-5 μW.