Preface

Chapter 7 **High Voltage Energy Harvesters 141**

and Moe Z. Win

**VI** Contents

**Section 4 Circuit Test and Analysis 159**

**Transmission Line 161**

Diène Ndiaye and Mary Teuw Niane

Xi Sung Loo, Kiat Seng Yeo, Joel Yang, Chee Huei Lee, Rong Zhao

Abdou Karim Farota, Mouhamadou Mansour Faye, Bouya Diop,

Chapter 8 **Experimental Studies of the Electrical Nonlinear Bimodal**

In the past several decades, the demand for high-speed, high reliable commercial and consum‐ er electronic devices has increased exponentially. New technologies, architecture renovation, and new materials have been applied to the developed electronic circuit systems. The eight chapters in this book volume aim to introduce emerging advanced circuit design, structures, and applications, including ZnO nanomaterials, millimeter wave, energy harvesting circuitry, as well as compressive sensing technique in electrical and electronic systems.

Chapter 1 describes a novel self-starting DC-DC converter circuit using SiC for power elec‐ tronic applications in up to 300 °C environments. The work presented in this chapter could be of interest to professionals who work in the field of power electronics. Chapter 2 presents ZnO nanomaterial-based piezoelectric structure design in the applications of polycrystalline solar cells. Based on the design, a prototype for energy harvesting operation was built and tested in a variety of irradiance operating conditions. Chapter 3 introduces a new nanoarchi‐ tecture for quantum-dot cellular automata principles and design, especially for high-speed digital circuit applications. Chapter 4 proposes an emerging millimeter wave receiver de‐ sign, which would be of interest to the readers working on this frontier technology. The multiport circuit design work shown in this chapter can be a useful reference for millimeter wave engineers and researchers. Experimental results validate the theory and performance of this design. Chapter 5 discusses another emerging technology, compressive sensing. Compressive sensing has become an attractive technique in many applied research and en‐ gineering fields, such as big data, image processing, radar system, and wireless sensor net‐ works. This chapter implemented compressive sensing technique in radar and localization applications. Chapter 6 gives a review on two popular memory technologies, namely, SRAM and DRAM. A new design of P-3T1D DRAM cell with much faster reading time is proposed for high-speed embedded system memory applications. Chapter 7 presents three small-scale wind energy harvester circuits for high-voltage applications. The methods, de‐ signs, and measurement results given in this chapter can be useful to energy harvesting cir‐ cuit design engineers. Chapter 8 describes an experimental work on characterizing electrical nonlinear bimodal transmission line. The experimental approach proposed in this work al‐ lows tracing the curve dispersion of a nonlinear transmission line.

These eight chapters cover a wide range of topics: from new materials and architectures to emerging technologies and advanced circuit design. This high-quality book volume would not have been possible without the collaboration of the authors, the reviewers, and the staff at InTech Open who assisted in the initial preparation, quality check, and final production phases. I would like to thank all of them for their invaluable work and time in producing this book volume. I hope that the readers enjoy this book volume and find it as a good refer‐ ence in circuit design and applied research.

> **Dr. Mingbo Niu, PhD, PEng** Okanagan College, Kelowna campus British Columbia, Canada

**Section 1**

**New Materials for Electric Circuits**

**New Materials for Electric Circuits**

**Chapter 1**

Provisional chapter

**Self-Oscillatory DC-DC Converter Circuits for Energy**

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.72718

Self-Oscillatory DC-DC Converter Circuits for Energy

A novel self-starting converter circuit technology is described for energy harvesting and powering wireless sensor nodes, constructed from silicon carbide devices and proprietary high temperature passives for deployment in hostile environments. After a brief review of the advantages using Silicon Carbide (SiC) over other semiconductors in extreme environments, the chapter will describe the advantages and principles when designing circuitry and architectures using SiC for power electronics. The practical results from a novel self-starting DC-DC converter are reported, which is designed to supply power to a WSN for deployment in high temperature environments. The converter operates in the boundary between continuous and discontinuous mode of operation and has a Voltage Conversion Ratio (VCR) of 3 at 300C. This topology is able to self-start and so requires no external control circuitry, making it ideal for energy harvesting applications, where the energy supply may be intermittent. Experimental results for the self-starting converter operating from room temperature up to 300C are presented. The converter output voltage, switching frequency, total power loss and

Keywords: wide band gap semiconductors, silicon carbide, SiC, energy harvesting, wireless sensor networks, high temperature circuit, switching frequency, MOSFETs,

In recent years there has been increasing demand to investigate and monitor ever more hostile environments including those containing high temperatures and/or extreme radiation flux [1–3]. Silicon carbide (SiC) boasts a much higher band gap than conventional silicon and is therefore

> © The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and eproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use,

**Harvesting in Extreme Environments**

Harvesting in Extreme Environments

Ming-Hung Weng, Daniel Brennan, Nick Wright and

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

efficiency were presented at temperatures up to 300C.

JFETs, DC-DC power converters, field effect transistor switches

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.72718

Nick Wright and Alton Horsfall

Ming-Hung Weng, Daniel Brennan,

Alton Horsfall

Abstract

1. Introduction

Provisional chapter
