A high-efficiency DC-DC buck converter for sub-2×VDD power supply

This paper presents a DC-DC step-down converter, which can accommodate the range of power supply voltage from VDD to sub-2×VDD. By utilizing stacked power MOSFETs, a voltage level converter, a detector and a controller, the proposed design is realized by a typical 1P6M CMOS process without using any high voltage process to resolve gate-oxide reliability and leakage current problems. The core area of the proposed design is less than 0.184 mm², while the power supply range is up to 5 V. Since the internal reference voltage is 1.0 V, it can increase the output regulation range. The proposed design attains very high conversion efficiency to prolong the life time of battery-based power supply. Therefore, it can be integrated in a SOC (system-on-chip) to provide multiple supply voltage sources.     

A sub 1 V high PSRR CMOS bandgap voltage reference

A Bandgap circuit capable of generating a reference voltage of less than 1 V with high PSRR and low temperature sensitivity is proposed. High PSRR achieved by means of an improved current mode regulator which isolates the bandgap voltage from the variations and the noise of the power supply. A vigorous analytical approach is presented to provide a universal design guideline. The analysis unveils the sensitivity of the circuit characteristic to device parameters. The proposed circuit is fabricated in a CMOS technology and operates down to a supply voltage of 1.2 V. The circuit yields 20 ppm/°C of temperature coefficient in typical case and 50 ppm/°C of temperature coefficient in worst case over temperature range −40 to 140°C, 60 ppm/V of supply voltage dependence and 60 dB PSRR at 1 MHz without trimming or extra circuits for the curvature compensation. The entire circuit occupies 0.027 mm² of die area and consumes from a 1.2 V supply voltage at room temperature. Twenty chips are tested to show the robustness of the topology and the measurement results are compared with Monte Carlo simulation and analysis.     

A 1-V RF-CMOS LNA design utilizing the technique of capacitive feedback matching network

In this paper, a CMOS low-noise amplifier (LNA) with a new input matching topology has been proposed, analyzed and measured. The input matching network is designed through the technique of capacitive feedback matching network. The proposed LNA which is implemented in a technology is operated at the frequency of 12.8 GHz. It has a gain S21 of 13.2 dB, a noise figure (NF) of 4.57 dB and an NF_min of 4.46 dB. The reverse isolation S12 of the LNA can achieve and the input and output return losses are better than . The input 1-dB compression point is and IIP3 is . This LNA drains 10 mA from the supply voltage of 1 V.     

High-speed CMOS unity-gain current amplifier

A high-performance CMOS unity-gain current amplifier is proposed. The solution adopts two feedback loops to reduce the input resistance and a nested-Miller technique to provide frequency compensation. A design example using a 0.8 μm process and a 2 V supply is given and SPICE simulations show a bandwidth of 75 MHz, no slew-rate limitations and a settling time better than 50 ns, irrespective of the current amplitude. Input and output resistances are better than 0.1 Ω and 15 MΩ, respectively. The input-referred white noise spectral density is .     

A 1-GHz, multibit, continuous-time, delta-sigma ADC for Gigabit Ethernet

In this work the design of a continuous-time ΔΣ modulator for Gigabit Ethernet applications is presented. The input bandwidth and oversampling ratio are, respectively, 62.5 MHz and 8, resulting in a clock frequency of 1 GHz. It was designed and implemented in a standard 90 nm CMOS technology. The active area of the modulator measures . It consists of a loop filter based on RC-opamp integrators and a 3-bit quantizer which includes a data weighted averaging scrambler. A digital tuning scheme to deal with process variations has also been included. System level simulations including several non-ideal effects have been carried out in order to determine in detail the performance of the converter. Experimental results show a resolution of 7.1 effective bits, and a power consumption of 10.8 mW from a nominal power supply of 1 V.     

Ultra-low-power temperature compensated voltage reference generator

A CMOS voltage reference generator, based on the difference between the gate-source voltages of two NMOS transistors, has been implemented with AMS 0.35 μm CMOS technology (V_thn=0.45 and at 0 °C). The minimum and maximum supply voltages that ensure the correct operation of the reference voltage generator, are 1.5 and 4.3 V, respectively. The supply current at the maximum supply voltage and at 80 °C is 2.4 μA. A temperature coefficient of 25 ppm/°C and a line sensitivity of 1.6 mV/V are achieved. The power supply rejection ratios without any filtering capacitor at 100 Hz and 10 MHz are larger than −74 and −59 dB, respectively. The occupied chip area is 0.08 mm².     

Low-voltage nanopower clock generator for RFID applications

The design of an on-chip RC-based oscillator, implemented in a standard BiCMOS process, without any external component, is presented. The proposed oscillator provides a clock signal at a frequency of 50 kHz with a temperature coefficient smaller than 0.3%/^°C over a temperature range from 0 to , without any external trimming. The proposed oscillator operates with a supply voltage of 0.8 V and has a power consumption of at room temperature. The chip area is .     

A high precision low dropout regulator with nested feedback loops

A high precision low dropout regulator (LDO) with nested feedback loops is proposed in this paper. By nesting a zero-tracking compensation loop inside of the negative feedback loop comprising an error amplifier, the independence of off-chip capacitor and effective series resistance (ESR) is ensured for different load currents and operating voltages. This circuit is designed and fabricated using a standard CMOS process. The die area is a . The measurement results show that the total error of the output voltage caused by line and load variations is less than ±3% in low quiescent current (Iddq) or low voltage scenarios. Besides, the smallest dropout of the LDO, 0.11 V, while the output current is 165 mA, the output load is and 20 in parallel.     

An ultra-low power integer-N frequency synthesizer for MICS transceivers

The ultra-low power frequency synthesizer for the transceivers used in the application of Medical Implantable Communication Services (MICS) is presented. The MICS band is from 402 to 405 MHz. Each channel spacing is 300 kHz. Integer-N architecture is used to implement the frequency synthesizer. The post layout simulations show that the total power consumption of the system is less than at 1.2 V power supply. The gains of the charge pump and voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) are and 50 MHz/V, respectively. The standard 300 kHz external clock is used as the reference. The design is carried out in the IBM 90 nm 9LPRF CMOS technology.     

High-mobility pentacene thin-film transistors with copolymer-gate dielectric

Pentacene thin-film transistors have been obtained using polymethyl-methacrylate-co-glyciclyl-methacrylate (PMMA-GMA) as the gate dielectric. The optimum active layer thickness in thin-film transistors (OTFTs) was investigated. The present devices show a wide operation voltage range. The on/off current ratio is as high as 10⁵. In linear region (), the field-effect mobility of device increases with the increase in gate field at low-voltage region (), and a mobility of 0.33 cm²/V s can be obtained when . In saturation region, the mobility increases linearly with the gate field, and a high mobility of 1.14 cm²/V s can be obtained at . The influence of voltage on mobility of device was investigated.     

A low-power 2 GHz data conversion using delta modulation for portable application

This paper describes a new bandpass delta modulator dedicated to low-power and portable applications. The proposed modulator can convert a wide range of frequency, 500 MHz to 2.6 GHz, into an IF as low as 20 MHz by using under-sampling. Design issues in excess loop delay, linearity, and high frequency operation are discussed and some circuit solutions are proposed for a continuous-time modulator. Simulation and experimental results obtained using CMOS IBM technology are presented and discussed. Total power consumption is 37.2 mW when the voltage supply is 1.2 V.     

A dual-mode fast-transient average-current-mode buck converter without slope-compensation

A dual-mode fast-transient average-current-mode buck converter without slope-compensation is proposed in this paper. The benefits of the average-current-mode are fast-transient response, simple compensation design, and no requirement for slope-compensation, furthermore, that minimizes some power management problems, such as EMI, size, design complexity, and cost. Average-current-mode control employs two loop control methods, an inner loop for current and an outer one for voltage. The proposed buck converter using the current-sensing and average-current-mode control techniques can be stable even if the duty cycle is greater than 50%. Also, adaptively switch between pulse-width modulation (PWM) and pulse-frequency modulation (PFM) is operated with high conversion efficiency. Under light load condition, the proposed buck converter enters PFM mode to decrease the output ripple. Even more, switching PWM mode realizes a smooth transition under heavy load condition. Therefore, PFM is used to improve the efficiency at light load. Dual-mode buck converter has high conversion efficiency over a wide load conditions. The proposed buck converter has been fabricated with TSMC 0.35 μm CMOS 2P4M processes, the total chip area is 1.45×1.11 mm². Maximum output current is 450 mA at the output voltage 1.8 V. When the supply voltage is 3.6 V, the output voltage can be 0.8-2.8 V. Maximum transient response is less than 10 μs. Finally, the theoretical analysis is verified to be correct by simulations and experiments.     

Current-mode full-duplex (CMFD) signaling for high-speed chip-to-chip interconnect

In this work we propose a new current-mode full-duplex (CMFD) signaling scheme for high-speed chip-to-chip data communication. In this scheme, all the internal nodes of the link are maintained at low-impedance, facilitating high-speed data communication. A new hybrid circuit topology required for separating the inbound signal from the outbound signal is presented. The proposed current-mode hybrid is realized by a source-coupled main driver, a scaled down replica stage and a common-gate (CG) transimpedance amplifier (TIA). Detailed design, analysis, noise and jitter characterization of the proposed hybrid is presented. The hybrid is realized in 1.8 V, digital CMOS technology. Using this hybrid circuit topology, CMFD signaling over a chip-to-chip interconnect is demonstrated. The post-layout performance shows 8 Gb/s data transfer rate over a FR4 PCB trace of length 7.5 in. for a target bit-error rate (BER) of 10⁻¹². The FR4 PCB trace is modeled by measured 4-port S-parameters in the frequency range from 100 MHz to 20 GHz. The input-referred noise current of the receiver and output-noise voltage of transmitter are and 5.34 mV, respectively. The standalone power consumption of the hybrid is 14.64 mW.     

A feedback loop regulated bootstrap driver circuit with improved drive capability for high voltage buck DC–DC converter

A novel bootstrap driver circuit applied to high voltage buck DC–DC converter is proposed. The gate driver voltage of the high side switch is regulated by a feedback loop to obtain accurate and stable bootstrapped voltage. The charging current of bootstrap capacitor is provided by the input power of the DC–DC converter directly instead of internal low voltage power source, so larger driver capability of the proposed circuit can be achieved. The bootstrap driver circuit starts to charge the bootstrap capacitor before the switch node SW drop to zero voltage at high-side switch off-time. Thus inadequate bootstrap voltage is avoided. The proposed circuit has been implemented in a high voltage buck DC–DC converter with 0.6 µm 40 V CDMOS process. The experimental results show that the bootstrap driver circuit provides 5 V stable bootstrap voltage with higher drive capability to drive high side switch. The proposed circuit is suitable for high voltage, large current buck DC–DC converter.     

Gaussian distribution of inhomogeneous barrier height in tungsten/4H-SiC (000-1) Schottky diodes

The Gaussian distribution model have been used to analyze the anomalies observed in tungsten (W)/4H-SiC current voltage characteristics due to the barrier inhomogeneities that prevail at the metal-semiconductor interface. From the analysis of the forward I-V characteristics measured at elevated temperatures within the range of 303-448 K and by the assumption of a Gaussian distribution (GD) of barrier heights (BHs), a mean barrier height of 1.277 eV, a zero-bias standard deviation σ₀ = 0.092 V and a factor T₀ of 21.69 K have been obtained. Furthermore the modified Richardson plot according to the Gaussian distribution model resulted in a mean barrier height and a Richardson constant (A^∗) of 1.276 eV and 145 A/cm² K², respectively. The A^∗ value obtained from this plot is in very close agreement with the theoretical value of 146 A/cm² K² for n-type 4H-SiC. Therefore, it has been concluded that the temperature dependence of the forward I-V characteristics of the W/4H-SiC contacts can be successfully explained on the basis of a thermionic emission conduction mechanism with Gaussian distributed barriers. In addition, a comparison is made between the present results and those obtained previously assuming the pinch-off model.