Charge pump

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A charge pump is an electronic circuit that uses capacitors as energy storage elements to create either a higher or lower voltage power source. Charge pump circuits are capable of high efficiencies, sometimes as high as 90-95% while being electrically simple circuits.

Charge pumps use some form of switching device(s) to control the connection of voltages to the capacitor. For instance, to generate a higher voltage, the first stage involves the capacitor being connected across a voltage and charged up. In the second stage, the capacitor is disconnected from the original charging voltage and reconnected with its negative terminal to the original positive charging voltage. Because the capacitor retains the voltage across it (ignoring leakage effects) the positive terminal voltage is added to the original, effectively doubling the voltage. The pulsing nature of the higher voltage output is typically smoothed by the use of an output capacitor.

This is the charge pumping action, which typically operates at tens of kilohertz to minimize the amount of capacitance required. The capacitor used as the charge pump is typically known as the "flying capacitor".

Another way to explain the operation of a charge pump is to consider it as the combination of a DC to AC converter (the switches) followed by a voltage multiplier.

The voltage is load-dependent; higher loads result in lower average voltages.

Charge pumps can double voltages, invert voltages, and generate arbitrary voltages, depending on the controller and circuit topology.

[edit] Applications

A common application for charge pump circuits is in RS-232 level shifters where they are used to derive positive and negative voltages (often +10 V and -10 V) from a single 5 V or 3 V power supply rail.
Charge pumps can also be used as LCD or white LED drivers, generating high bias voltages from a single low-voltage supply, such as a battery.
Charge pumps are also used to generate high voltage (5kv and up) for modern neon signs (older signs use a transformer).
Charge pumps are a key component in Flash EPROM memory devices. These devices require a high voltage pulse to "clean out" any existing data in a particular memory cell before it can be written with a new value. Modern Flash EPROMs generally operate at 1.8 or 3.3V, but require about 10V to write.
The charging circuit for a camera flash is essentially a variable frequency charge pump. The frequency increases with the voltage, producing a sound with a rising pitch.