In electronics, charge pumps are circuits used to convert a DC voltage level to a higher or lower DC voltage level, by transferring charge in a sequence with capacitors.

The Dickson charge pump is an implementation of a charge pump that uses capacitors, diodes, and a periodic input clock signal to cascade and generate an output voltage higher than the input voltage.

The below is a Dickson charge pump with five main stages.1

Footnotes

  1. From ECE231 — Introductory Electronics lab 2.