Patent ID: 7965130

Claim:
A charge pump, comprising: a plurality of charge pump cells, each charge pump cell of the plurality of charge pump cells having a clock terminal for receiving a delayed clock signal, an input terminal for receiving an input voltage, and an output terminal for providing a boosted voltage in response to receiving the delayed clock signal and the input voltage; and a start-up control circuit, coupled to clock terminals of each of the plurality of charge pump cells, the start-up control circuit for delaying the delayed clock signal provided to each charge pump cell of the plurality of charge pump cells, wherein each of the charge pump cells receives the delayed clock signal having a different predetermined delay so that each of the plurality of charge pump cells are enabled in a predetermined sequence during start-up of the charge pump, and wherein the start-up control circuit includes, a shift register having a plurality of output terminals, an output terminal of the plurality of output terminals coupled to the clock terminal of one of the plurality of charge pump cells; and a divider having an input coupled to receive a clock signal, and an output coupled to the shift register.