A typical switched capacitor converter consists of four large MOS switches that generate the desired direction to double or halve the input supply voltage under a sequential switch. Energy transmission and storage are provided by external capacitors.

During the * part of the switching cycle, the input voltage is applied to the capacitor (C1). In the second part of the switching cycle, the charge is transferred from C1 to the second capacitor C2. The most traditional structure of a switched capacitor converter is an inverter in which the positive end of C2 is grounded and its negative end transmits a negative voltage output. After a few cycles, the voltage at both ends of C2 will be applied to the input voltage. Assuming there is no load on C2, no loss on the switch, and no equivalent resistance in the capacitor, the output voltage is the negative input voltage. In practice, the efficiency of charge transfer (and thus the accuracy of the output voltage) depends on the switching frequency, the resistance of the switch, the value of the capacitance, and the resistance. A similar topological voltage doubler uses the same switches and capacitor banks, but changes the ground connection and input voltage. Other more complex variations use additional switches and capacitors to achieve other conversion ratios of input voltage to output voltage, and in some cases, special switching sequences are used to produce fractional relationships (e.g., 3/2). In its simplest form, switched capacitor converters have no voltage regulation function. Some new national semiconductor switched capacitor converters have self-adjusting gain stages to produce a stable output; Other switched capacitance converters that do not regulate the output use the built-in LDO linear regulator.