Voltage doubler

A voltage doubler is an electronic circuit which charges

capacitors from the input voltage and switches these
charges in such a way that, in the ideal case, exactly twice
the voltage is produced at the output as at its input.

The peak-to-peak ripple is an enormous 2V and cannot be smoothed unless the circuit is eectively turned
into one of the more sophisticated forms.[1] This is the
circuit (with diode reversed) used to supply the negative
high voltage for the magnetron in a microwave oven.

The simplest of these circuits are a form of rectier which

take an AC voltage as input and outputs a doubled DC
voltage. The switching elements are simple diodes and 1.2
they are driven to switch state merely by the alternating
voltage of the input. DC-to-DC voltage doublers cannot
switch in this way and require a driving circuit to control
the switching. They frequently also require a switching element that can be controlled directly, such as a transistor,
rather than relying on the voltage across the switch as in
the simple AC-to-DC case.

Greinacher circuit

Voltage doublers are a variety of voltage multiplier circuit. Many, but not all, voltage doubler circuits can be
Figure 2. Greinacher circuit
viewed as a single stage of a higher order multiplier: cascading identical stages together achieves a greater voltage
The Greinacher voltage doubler is a signicant improvemultiplication.
ment over the Villard circuit for a small cost in additional
components. The ripple is much reduced, nominally zero
under open-circuit load conditions, but when current is
1 Voltage doubling rectiers
being drawn depends on the resistance of the load and
the value of the capacitors used. The circuit works by following a Villard cell stage with what is in essence a peak
1.1 Villard circuit
detector or envelope detector stage. The peak detector
cell has the eect of removing most of the ripple while
preserving the peak voltage at the output. The Greinacher
circuit is also commonly known as the half-wave voltage
doubler.[2]

Figure 1. Villard circuit

The Villard circuit, due to Paul Ulrich Villard,[p 1] consists simply of a capacitor and a diode. While it has the
great benet of simplicity, its output has very poor ripple
characteristics. Essentially, the circuit is a diode clamp
circuit. The capacitor is charged on the negative half cycles to the peak AC voltage (V ). The output is the superposition of the input AC waveform and the steady DC
of the capacitor. The eect of the circuit is to shift the
DC value of the waveform. The negative peaks of the AC
waveform are clamped to 0 V (actually VF, the small
forward bias voltage of the diode) by the diode, therefore the positive peaks of the output waveform are 2V .

Figure 3. Voltage quadrupler two Greinacher cells of opposite

polarities

This circuit was rst invented by Heinrich Greinacher

in 1913 (published 1914[p 2] ) to provide the 200300 V
he needed for his newly invented ionometer, the 110 V
AC supplied by the Zurich power stations of the time
being insucient.[3] He later extended this idea into a
cascade of multipliers in 1920.[p 3][4][p 4] This cascade of
Greinacher cells is often inaccurately referred to as a Villard cascade. It is also called a CockcroftWalton multi1

plier after the particle accelerator machine built by John

Cockcroft and Ernest Walton, who independently discovered the circuit in 1932.[p 5][5] The concept in this topology can be extended to a voltage quadrupler circuit by
using two Greinacher cells of opposite polarities driven
from the same AC source. The output is taken across the
two individual outputs. As with a bridge circuit, it is impossible to simultaneously ground the input and output of
this circuit.[6]

1.3

Bridge circuit

Figure 4. Bridge (Delon) voltage doubler

SWITCHED CAPACITOR CIRCUITS

It is possible to use the simple diode-capacitor circuits

described above to double the voltage of a DC source
by preceding the voltage doubler with a chopper circuit.
In eect, this converts the DC to AC before application
to the voltage doubler.[8] More ecient circuits can be
built by driving the switching devices from an external
clock so that both functions, the chopping and multiplying, are achieved simultaneously. Such circuits are known
as switched capacitor circuits. This approach is especially
useful in low-voltage battery-powered applications where
integrated circuits require a voltage supply greater than
the battery can deliver. Frequently, a clock signal is readily available on board the integrated circuit and little or
no additional circuitry is needed to generate it.[9]
Conceptually, perhaps the simplest switched capacitor
conguration is that shown schematically in gure 5.
Here two capacitors are simultaneously charged to the
same voltage in parallel. The supply is then switched o
and the capacitors are switched into series. The output
is taken from across the two capacitors in series resulting
in an output double the supply voltage. There are many
dierent switching devices that could be used in such a
circuit, but in integrated circuits MOSFET devices are
frequently employed.[10]

The Delon circuit uses a bridge topology for voltage

doubling;[p 6] consequently it is also called a full-wave
voltage doubler.[2] This form of circuit was, at one time,
commonly found in cathode ray tube television sets where
it was used to provide an e.h.t. voltage supply. Generating voltages in excess of 5 kV with a transformer has
safety issues in terms of domestic equipment and in any
case is uneconomical. However, black and white television sets required an e.h.t. of 10 kV and colour sets even
more. Voltage doublers were used to either double the
voltage on an e.h.t winding on the mains transformer or
were applied to the waveform on the line yback coils.[7]
The circuit consists of two half-wave peak detectors,
functioning in exactly the same way as the peak detector cell in the Greinacher circuit. Each of the two peak
detector cells operates on opposite half-cycles of the incoming waveform. Since their outputs are in series, the
output is twice the peak input voltage.

Switched capacitor circuits

Figure 5. Switched capacitor voltage doubler achieved by simply

switching charged capacitors from parallel to series

Figure 6. Charge-pump voltage doubler schematic

Another basic concept is the charge pump, a version of

which is shown schematically in gure 6. The charge
pump capacitor, CP, is rst charged to the input voltage.
It is then switched to charging the output capacitor, CO,
in series with the input voltage resulting in CO eventually being charged to twice the input voltage. It may take
several cycles before the charge pump succeeds in fully
charging CO but after steady state has been reached it is
only necessary for CP to pump a small amount of charge
equivalent to that being supplied to the load from CO.
While CO is disconnected from the charge pump it partially discharges into the load resulting in ripple on the
output voltage. This ripple is smaller for higher clock
frequencies since the discharge time is shorter, and is
also easier to lter. Alternatively, the capacitors can be
made smaller for a given ripple specication. The practical maximum clock frequency in integrated circuits is
typically in the hundreds of kilohertz.[11]

2.2

2.1

Cross-coupled switched capacitors

Dickson charge pump

Clock
Figure 7. Dickson charge-pump voltage-doubler

3
the on state. However, integrated circuit designers prefer
to use the easily available MOSFET and compensate for
its inadequacies with increased circuit complexity.[14]
As an example, an alkaline battery cell has a nominal
voltage of 1.5 V. A voltage doubler using ideal switching
elements with zero voltage drop will output double this,
namely 3.0 V. However, the drain-source voltage drop of
a diode-wired MOSFET when it is in the on state must
be at least the gate threshold voltage which might typically be 0.9 V.[15] This voltage doubler will only succeed in raising the output voltage by about 0.6 V to 2.1
V. If the drop across the nal smoothing transistor is also
taken into account the circuit may not be able to increase
the voltage at all without using multiple stages. A typical
Schottky diode, on the other hand, might have an on state
voltage of 0.3 V.[16] A doubler using this Schottky diode
will result in a voltage of 2.7 V, or at the output after the
smoothing diode, 2.4 V.[17]

The Dickson charge pump, or Dickson multiplier, consists of a cascade of diode/capacitor cells with the bottom
plate of each capacitor driven by a clock pulse train.[p 7]
The circuit is a modication of the Cockcroft-Walton
multiplier but takes a DC input with the clock trains providing the switching signal instead of the AC input. The
Dickson multiplier normally requires that alternate cells
are driven from clock pulses of opposite phase. However, since a voltage doubler, shown in gure 7, requires 2.2
only one stage of multiplication only one clock signal is
required.[12]

Cross-coupled switched capacitors

The Dickson multiplier is frequently employed in integrated circuits where the supply voltage (from a battery
for instance) is lower than that required by the circuitry.
It is advantageous in integrated circuit manufacture that
all the semiconductor components are of basically the
same type. MOSFETs are commonly the standard logic
block in many integrated circuits. For this reason the
diodes are often replaced by this type of transistor, but
wired to function as a diode - an arrangement called a
diode-wired MOSFET. Figure 8 shows a Dickson voltage
doubler using diode-wired n-channel enhancement type
MOSFETs.[13]
Figure 9. Cross-coupled switched-capacitor voltage doubler

Clock
Figure 8. Dickson voltage doubler using diode-wired MOSFETs

There are many variations and improvements to the basic

Dickson charge pump. Many of these are concerned with
reducing the eect of the transistor drain-source voltage.
This can be very signicant if the input voltage is small,
such as a low-voltage battery. With ideal switching elements the output is an integral multiple of the input (two
for a doubler) but with a single-cell battery as the input
source and MOSFET switches the output will be far less
than this value since much of the voltage will be dropped
across the transistors. For a circuit using discrete components the Schottky diode would be a better choice of
switching element for its extremely low voltage drop in

Cross-coupled switched capacitor circuits come into their

own for very low input voltages. Wireless battery driven
equipment such as pagers, bluetooth devices and the like
may require a single-cell battery to continue to supply
power when it has discharged to under a volt.[18]
When clock 1 is low transistor Q2 is turned o. At
the same time clock 2 is high turning on transistor Q1
resulting in capacitor C1 being charged to V . When 1
goes high the top plate of C1 is pushed up to twice V .
At the same time switch S1 closes so this voltage appears
at the output. At the same time Q2 is turned on allowing
C2 to charge. On the next half cycle the roles will be
reversed: 1 will be low, 2 will be high, S1 will open
and S2 will close. Thus, the output is supplied with 2V
alternately from each side of the circuit.[19]
The loss is low in this circuit because there are no diodewired MOSFETs and their associated threshold voltage
problems. The circuit also has the advantage that the ripple frequency is doubled because there are eectively two

5 BIBLIOGRAPHY

voltage doublers both supplying the output from out of [17] Yuan, p.17
phase clocks. The primary disadvantage of this circuit is
that stray capacitances are much more signicant than [18] Peluso et al., pp.36-37
Liu 2006, pp. 232-234
with the Dickson multiplier and account for the larger
[20]
part of the losses in this circuit.
[19] Campardo et al., p.377
Peluso et al., p.36
Liu 2006, p. 234

See also
DC to DC converter
Flyback converter
Boost converter
Buck-boost converter
Voltage multiplier

References

[1] Kind & Feser 2001, p. 28

[2]

Earl Gates (2011). Introduction to Electronics. Cengage Learning. pp. 283284. ISBN 1-111-128537.
James F. Cox (2002). Fundamentals of Linear Electronics: Integrated and Discrete. Cengage Learning.
pp. 4243. ISBN 0-7668-3018-7.
Robert Dienderfer (2005). Electronic Devices:
Systems and Applications. Cengage Learning. p.
135. ISBN 1-4018-3514-7.

[3] Mehra, p. 284

[4] Kind & Feser 2001, p. 29
[5] Kind & Feser 2001, p. 30
[6] Ryder 1970, p. 107
[7] Kories and Schmidt-Walter, p.615
Millman and Halkias, p. 109
Wharton and Howorth, pp. 6869
[8] McComb, pp.148-150
[9] Liu 2006, pp. 225-226
[10] Ahmed, p.164
[11] Zumbahlen, p.741
[12] Liu 2006, p. 226
Yuan, pp.13-14
[13] Liu 2006, p. 226
Yuan, p.14
[14] Liu 2006, pp. 228-232
Yuan, 14-21
[15] Liou et al., p.185
[16] Bassett & Taylor 2003, p. 17/27

[20] Peluso et al., p.36

Liu 2006, p. 234

5 Bibliography
Ahmed, Syed Imran Pipelined ADC Design and Enhancement Techniques, Springer, 2010 ISBN 90481-8651-X.
Bassett, R. J.; Taylor, P. D. (2003), 17. Power
Semiconductor Devices, Electrical Engineers Reference Book, Newnes, pp. 17/117/37, ISBN 07506-4637-3
Campardo, Giovanni; Micheloni, Rino; Novosel,
David VLSI-design of Non-volatile Memories,
Springer, 2005 ISBN 3-540-20198-X.
Kind, Dieter; Feser, Kurt (2001), translator Y.
Narayana Rao, ed., High-voltage Test Techniques,
Newnes, ISBN 0-7506-5183-0
Kories, Ralf; Schmidt-Walter, Heinz Taschenbuch
der Elektrotechnik: Grundlagen und Elektronik,
Deutsch Harri GmbH, 2004 ISBN 3-8171-1734-5.
Liou, Juin J.; Ortiz-Conde, Adelmo; GarcaSnchez, F. Analysis and Design of MOSFETs,
Springer, 1998 ISBN 0-412-14601-0.
Liu, Mingliang (2006), Demystifying Switched Capacitor Circuits, Newnes, ISBN 0-7506-7907-7
McComb, Gordon Gordon McCombs gadgeteers
goldmine!, McGraw-Hill Professional, 1990 ISBN
0-8306-3360-X.
Mehra, J; Rechenberg, H The Historical Development of Quantum Theory, Springer, 2001 ISBN 0387-95179-2.
Millman, Jacob; Halkias, Christos C. Integrated
Electronics, McGraw-Hill Kogakusha, 1972 ISBN
0-07-042315-6.
Peluso, Vincenzo; Steyaert, Michiel; Sansen, Willy
M. C. Design of Low-voltage Low-power CMOS
Delta-Sigma A/D Converters, Springer, 1999 ISBN
0-7923-8417-2.
Ryder, J. D. (1970), Electronic Fundamentals & Applications, Pitman Publishing, ISBN 0-273-31491-2

5
Wharton, W.; Howorth, D. Principles of Television
Reception, Pitman Publishing, 1971 ISBN 0-27336103-1.
Yuan, Fei CMOS Circuits for Passive Wireless Microsystems, Springer, 2010 ISBN 1-4419-7679-5.
Zumbahlen, Hank Linear Circuit Design Handbook,
Newnes, 2008 ISBN 0-7506-8703-7.

Primary sources

[1] Villard, P. (1901), Transformateur haut voltage. A

survolteur cathodique [High-voltage transformer. Cathodic voltage booster], Journal de Physique Thorique
et Applique, 4th series (in French) 10: 2832,
doi:10.1051/jphystap:019010010002801. Villards voltage booster appears in Fig. 1 on p. 31.
[2] Greinacher, H. (1914), Das Ionometer und seine Verwendung zur Messung von Radium- und Rntgenstrahlen
[The ionometer and its application to the measurement of
radium- and Rntgen rays], Physikalische Zeitschrift (in
German) 15: 410415. Greinachers voltage doubler appears in Fig. 4 on p. 412. He used chemical (electrolytic)
rectiers, which are denoted Z (Zellen, cells).
[3] Greinacher, H. (1921), "ber eine Methode, Wechselstrom mittels elektrischer Ventile und Kondensatoren
in hochgespannten Gleichstrom umzuwandeln [On a
method to transform a.c.
current via electrical
diodes and capacitors into high-voltage d.c. current],
Zeitschrift fr Physik (in German) 4 (2): 195205,
doi:10.1007/bf01328615
[4] In 1919, a year before Greinacher published his voltage multiplier, the German Moritz Schenkel published a
multi-stage voltage multiplier.
Schenkel, Moritz (July 10, 1919), Eine neue Schaltung fr die Erzeugung hoher Gleichspannungen
[A new circuit for the creation of high d.c. voltages], Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift (in German) 40
(28): 333344
A condensed version of Schenkels article with
an illustration of the circuit appeared in: Eine
neue Schaltung fr die Erzeugung hoher Gleichspannungen, Polytechnische Schau, 334 : 203204 (1919). Available on-line at: Polytechnisches
Journal.
[5] Cockcroft, J. D.; Walton, E. T. S. (1932), Experiments
with high velocity positive ions. (1) Further developments in the method of obtaining high velocity positive
ions, Proceedings of the Royal Society A 136: 619630,
doi:10.1098/rspa.1932.0107
[6] Jules Delon (1876-1941) was an engineer for the French
company Socit franaise des cbles lectriques BerthoudBorel. He used a mechanical rectier, which was based on
a rotating commutator (contact tournant).

His apparatus was exhibited at the 1908 Exposition d'lectricit in Marseille, France: Georges
Tardy (August 15, 1908) Contact tournant de
la Socit franaise des cbles lectriques Systeme Berthoud-Borel, L'Electricien: Revue Internationale de l'Electricit et de ses Applications, 2nd
series, 36 (920) : 97-98. (Article includes photograph of machine.) The equipment was used to test
insulation on high-voltage commercial power lines.
The operation of Delons bridge rectier is also explained (with schematic) in: E. von Rziha and Josef
Seidener, Starkstromtechnik: Taschenbuch fr Elektrotechniker (High-current technology: A Pocket
book for Electrical Engineers), 5th ed., vol. 1,
(Berlin, Germany: Wilhelm Ernst & Sohn, 1921),
pages 710-711.
Delons name and dates appear in: Friedrich Heilbronner, Internationale Liste von Elektrotechnikern
(2013), pp. 14-15. Brief obituary of Jules Delon,
Technica (Journal of the Association des anciens
eleves de l'ecole centrale Lyonnaise (Association of
the Alumni of the Central School of Lyon)), 2nd series, no. 25, page 24 (December 1941). Available
on-line at: Technica. See also Delons U.S. patents
no. 1,740,076, no. 1,837,952, and no. 1,995,201.
[7] Dickson, John F. (July 1976), On-chip high-voltage
generation in MNOS integrated circuits using an
improved voltage multiplier technique,
IEEE
Journal of Solid-State Circuits 11 (3): 374378,
doi:10.1109/jssc.1976.1050739

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