A 1-V integrated current-mode boost converter in standard 3.3/5-V CMOS technologies

A 1-V integrated CMOS current-mode boost converter implemented in a standard 3.3/5-V 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS technology (V/sub TH//spl ap/0.85 V), providing power-conversion efficiency of higher than 85% at 100-mA output current, is presented in this paper. The high-performance boost converter is successfully developed due to three proposed low-voltage circuit structures, including an inductor-current sensing circuit for current-mode operation with accuracy of higher than 94%, a precision V-I converter for compensation-ramp generation in current-mode control, and a VCO providing supply-independent clock and ramp signals. Moreover, a proposed startup circuit enables proper converter startup within a sub-1-V supply condition.     

A programmable integrated digital controller for switching converters with dual-band switching and complex pole-zero compensation

The design of a 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS programmable integrated digital PID controller for a buck converter is presented. Several novel features are implemented. These include: 1) a dual-band switching scheme for sampling the output voltage for better output resolution; 2) a dual-band switching PWM generator with a modified tapped delay line for area efficiency; 3) a VCO driving a counter to serve as an ADC; 4) a programmable PID compensator employing variable integration times for enhancing accuracy and stability; and 5) complex pole-zero cancellation in extending the bandwidth of the control loop. The converter is designed for variable output applications, and the fast digital loop achieves a tracking time of 50 /spl mu/s for a 1-V step change of the reference voltage. The converter switches at 1 MHz and attains a maximum efficiency of 90% when delivering a load of 125 mW.     

A high-voltage output driver in a 2.5-V 0.25-/spl mu/m CMOS technology

The design of a high-voltage output driver in a digital 0.25-/spl mu/m 2.5-V technology is presented. The use of stacked devices with a self-biased cascode topology allows the driver to operate at three times the nominal supply voltage. Oxide stress and hot carrier degradation is minimized since the driver operates within the voltage limits imposed by the design rules of a mainstream CMOS technology. The proposed high-voltage architecture uses a switching output stage. The realized prototype delivers an output swing of 6.46 V to a 50-/spl Omega/ load with a 7.5-V supply and an input square wave of 10 MHz. A PWM signal with a dual-tone sinusoid at 70 kHz and 250 kHz results in an IM3 of -65 dB and an IM2 of -67 dB. The on-resistance is 5.9 /spl Omega/.     

A quad CMOS single-supply op amp with rail-to-rail output swing

The realization of a commercially viable, general-purpose quad CMOS amplifier is presented, along with discussions of the tradeoffs involved in such a design. The amplifier features an output swing that extends to either supply rail, together with an input common-mode range that includes ground. The device is especially well suited for single-supply operation and is fully specified for operation from 5 to 15 V over a temperature range of -55 to +125/spl deg/C. In the areas of input offset voltage, offset voltage drift, input noise voltage, voltage gain, and load driving capability, this implementation offers performance that equals or exceeds that of popular general-purpose quads or bipolar of Bi-FET construction. On a 5-V supply the typical V/SUB os/ is 1 Mv, V/SUB os/ drift is 1.3 /spl mu/V//spl deg/C, 1-kHz noise is 36 nV//spl radic/Hz, and gain is one million into a 600-/spl Omega/ load. This device achieves its performance through circuit design and layout techniques as opposed to special analog CMOS processing, thus lending itself to use on system chips built with digital CMOS technology.     

A low-voltage, highly linear voltage-controlled transconductor

A low-voltage fully differential, voltage-controlled transconductor is described. The proposed transconductor achieves a wide input/control voltage range, with a highly linear transconductance factor and truly fully differential output currents. The transconductor is used to implement a G/sub m/-C adaptive forward equalizer (FE) for a 125 Mbps wire line transceiver using digital core transistors with channel length of no more than double the feature size in a typical digital CMOS 180-nm process and supply voltage as low as 1.6 V. The adaptive FE enables IEEE 1394b transceivers to operate over UTP-5 cables for up to 100 m in length. The transconductor stage occupies 1945 /spl mu/m/sup 2/ and consumes an average power of 418 /spl mu/w at 125 Mbps and 1.8-V supply.     

A monolithic current-mode CMOS DC-DC converter with on-chip current-sensing technique

A monolithic current-mode CMOS DC-DC converter with integrated power switches and a novel on-chip current sensor for feedback control is presented in this paper. With the proposed accurate on-chip current sensor, the sensed inductor current, combined with the internal ramp signal, can be used for current-mode DC-DC converter feedback control. In addition, no external components and no extra I/O pins are needed for the current-mode controller. The DC-DC converter has been fabricated with a standard 0.6-/spl mu/m CMOS process. The measured absolute error between the sensed signal and the inductor current is less than 4%. Experimental results show that this converter with on-chip current sensor can operate from 300 kHz to 1 MHz with supply voltage from 3 to 5.2 V, which is suitable for single-cell lithium-ion battery supply applications. The output ripple voltage is about 20 mV with a 10-/spl mu/F off-chip capacitor and 4.7-/spl mu/H off-chip inductor. The power efficiency is over 80% for load current from 50 to 450 mA.     

A CMOS analog front-end IC for portable EEG/ECG monitoring applications

A new digital programmable CMOS analog front-end (AFE) IC for measuring electroencephalograph or electrocardiogram signals in a portable instrumentation design approach is presented. This includes a new high-performance rail-to-rail instrumentation amplifier (IA) dedicated to the low-power AFE IC. The measurement results have shown that the proposed biomedical AFE IC, with a die size of 4.81 mm/sup 2/, achieves a maximum stable ac gain of 10 000 V/V, input-referred noise of 0.86 /spl mu/ V/sub rms/ (0.3 Hz-150 Hz), common-mode rejection ratio of at least 115 dB (0-1 kHz), input-referred dc offset of less than 60 /spl mu/V, input common mode range from -1.5 V to 1.3 V, and current drain of 485 /spl mu/A (excluding the power dissipation of external clock oscillator) at a /spl plusmn/1.5-V supply using a standard 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS process technology.     

A 14-bit, 10-Msamples/s D/A converter using multibit /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulation

A 14-bit digital-to-analog converter based on a fourth-order multibit sigma-delta modulator is described. The digital modulator is pipelined to minimize both its power dissipation and design complexity. The 6-bit output of this modulator is converted to analog using 64 current-steering cells that are continuously calibrated to a reference current. This converter achieves 85-dB dynamic range at 5-MHz signal bandwidth, with an oversampling ratio of 12. The chip was fabricated in a 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS technology and operates from a single 2.5-V supply.     

17-GHz 50-60 mW power amplifiers in 0.13-/spl mu/m standard CMOS

Two versions of power amplifiers with different output matching approaches for the 17-GHz band were realized in 0.13-/spl mu/m standard digital CMOS technology with 1.5-V supply voltage. The power amplifier with an external matching network delivers 17.8-dBm saturated output power with 15.6% power added efficiency (PAE). The small-signal gain is 11.5 dB. The fully integrated power amplifier delivers 17.1-dBm saturated output power with 9.3% PAE. The small-signal gain is 14.5 dB. No external radio frequency components are required.     

A 2-V 2.3/4.6-GHz dual-band frequency synthesizer in 0.35-/spl mu/m digital CMOS process

This brief describes the design of a frequency synthesizer for 2.3/4.6-GHz wireless applications in a 0.35-/spl mu/m digital CMOS process. This synthesizer provides dual-band output signals by means of frequency doubling techniques. Output frequency of the proposed synthesizer ranges from 1.87-2.3 GHz, and 3.74-4.6GHz. This chip consumes a total power of 80 mW from a single 2-V supply, including 45 mW for dual-band output buffers. Core size is 2200 /spl mu/m/spl times/1600 /spl mu/m.     

A 1.4-V 10-bit 25-MS/s pipelined ADC using opamp-reset switching technique

A low-voltage opamp-reset switching technique (ORST) that does not use clock boosting, bootstrapping, switched-opamp (SO), or threshold voltage scaling is presented. This technique greatly reduces device reliability issues. Unlike the SO technique, the opamps stay active for all clock phases and, therefore, the ORST is suitable for high-speed applications. This new switching technique is applied to the design of a 10-bit 25-MS/s pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The prototype ADC was fabricated in a 0.35-/spl mu/m CMOS process and demonstrates 55-dB signal-to-noise ratio, 55-dB spurious-free dynamic range, and 48-dB signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio performance with a 1.4-V power supply. The total power consumption is 21 mW. The ADC's minimum operating power supply is 1.3 V (|V/sub TH,P/| = 0.9 V) and the maximum operating frequency is 32 MS/s. The ORST is fully compatible with future low-voltage submicron CMOS processes.     

A high current drive CMOS output stage with a tunable quiescent current limiting circuit

A CMOS output stage based on a complementary common source with an original quiescent current limiting circuit is presented. The quiescent current can be varied over a wide range by means of a control current with no need to modify the transistor aspect ratios. The output stage has been coupled to a conventional complementary input stage to form a rail-to-rail buffer. A prototype with the inclusion of auxiliary pins for biasing and current monitoring purposes has been designed using the 1-/spl mu/m double-polysilicon BCD3S process of STMicroelectronics. On a single 5-V power supply, the maximum output current is 20 mA. The amplifier, biased for a total power dissipation of 1 mW, exhibits a total harmonic distortion of -58 dB at 1 kHz with 4-V peak-to-peak on a 330-/spl Omega/ load. Correct operation of the quiescent current limiting circuit has been demonstrated for a minimum supply voltage of 2.2 V.     

New low-voltage class AB/AB CMOS op amp with rail-to-rail input/output swing

A new low-voltage CMOS Class AB/AB fully differential opamp with rail-to-rail input/output swing and supply voltage lower than two V/sub GS/ drops is presented. The scheme is based on combining floating-gate transistors and Class AB input and output stages. The op amp is characterized by low static power consumption and enhanced slew-rate. Moreover the proposed opamp does not suffer from typical reliability problems related to initial charge trapped in the floating-gate devices. Simulation and experimental results in 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS technology verify the scheme operating with /spl plusmn/0.9-V supplies and close to rail-to-rail input and output swing.     

A 1-V 140-/spl mu/W 88-dB audio sigma-delta modulator in 90-nm CMOS

A single-loop third-order switched-capacitor /spl Sigma/-/spl Delta/ modulator in 90-nm standard digital CMOS technology is presented. The design is intended to minimize the power consumption in a low-voltage environment. A load-compensated OTA with rail-to-rail output swing and gain enhancement is chosen in this design, which provides higher power efficiency than the two-stage OTA. To lower the power consumption further, class-AB operation is also adapted in the OTA design. Due to the relatively low threshold voltage of the advanced technology, no clock bootstrapping circuits are needed to drive the switches and the power consumption of the digital circuits is reduced. All the capacitors are implemented using multilayer metal-wall structure, which can provide high-density capacitance. The modulator achieves 88-dB dynamic range in 20-kHz signal bandwidth with an oversampling ratio of 100. The power consumption is 140 /spl mu/W under 1-V supply voltage and the chip core size is 0.18 mm/sup 2/.     

A 1.5-V 12-bit power-efficient continuous-time third-order /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator

This paper presents the design strategy, implementation, and experimental results of a power-efficient third-order low-pass /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ analog-to-digital converter (ADC) using a continuous-time (CT) loop filter. The loop filter has been implemented by using active RC integrators. Several power optimizations, design requirements, and performance limitations relating to circuit nonidealities in the CT modulator are presented. The influence of the low supply voltage on the various building blocks such as the amplifier as well as on the overall /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ modulator is discussed. The ADC was implemented in a 3.3-V 0.5-/spl mu/m CMOS technology with standard threshold voltages. Measurements of the low-power 1.5-V CT /spl Sigma//spl Delta/ ADC show a dynamic range and peak signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio of 80 and 70 dB, respectively, in a bandwidth of 25 kHz. The measured power consumption is only 135 /spl mu/W from a single 1.5-V power supply.     

A technique to increase the efficiency of high-voltage charge pumps

A charge pump that utilizes a MOSFET body diode as a charge transfer switch is discussed. The body diode is characterized and a body diode model is developed for simulating the charge pump circuit. A 10% increase of voltage gain has been achieved in the proposed switching technique when compared with a traditional Dickson charge pump. The top plate and bottom plate switching technique have also been illustrated to improve the efficiency of the charge pump. A six-stage Dickson charge pump was designed to produce a 19 V output from a 3.3-V supply, using a 4 MHz, two-phase nonoverlapping clock signal driving the charge pump. The design was fabricated in a 0.35-/spl mu/m SOI CMOS process. An efficiency of 79% is achieved at a load current of approximately 19 /spl mu/A.     

A low-power 2.4-GHz transmitter/receiver CMOS IC

A 2.4-GHz CMOS receiver/transmitter incorporates circuit stacking and noninvasive baseband filtering to achieve a high sensitivity with low power dissipation. Using a single 1.6-GHz local oscillator, the transceiver employs two upconversion and downconversion stages while providing on-chip image rejection filtering. Realized in a 0.25-/spl mu/m digital CMOS technology, the receiver exhibits a noise figure of 6 dB and consumes 17.5 mW from a 2.5-V supply, and the transmitter delivers an output power of 0 dBm with a power consumption of 16 mW.     

Parasitic-aware RF circuit design and optimization

RF circuit synthesis techniques based on particle swarm optimization and adaptive simulated annealing with tunneling are described, and comparisons of parasitic-aware designs of an RF distributed amplifier and a nonlinear power amplifier are presented. Synthesized in 0.35-/spl mu/m digital CMOS using a single 3.3-V power supply, the designs provide an 8-dB gain and 8-GHz bandwidth for a four-stage distributed amplifier, and 1.2-W output power with 55% drain efficiency at 900 MHz for a three-stage power amplifier. A standard circuit simulator, HSPICE or SPECTRE, embedded in an optimization loop is used to evaluate cost functions. The proposed design and optimization methodology is computationally efficient and robust in searching complex multidimensional design spaces.     

A 6-GSamples/s multi-level decision feedback equalizer embedded in a 4-bit time-interleaved pipeline A/D converter

A 4-bit 6-GS/s pipeline A/D converter with 10-way time-interleaving is demonstrated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS technology. The A/D converter is designed for a serial-link receiver and features an embedded adjustable single-tap DFE for channel equalization. The ISI subtraction of the DFE is performed at the output of each pipeline stage; hence the effective feedback delay requirement is relaxed by 6/spl times/. Code-overlapping of the 1.5-bit pipeline stage along with digital error correction is used to absorb and remove the remainder of the ISI. The measured A/D converter performance at 6-GSamples/s shows 22.5 dB of low-frequency input SNDR for the calibrated A/D converter with /spl plusmn/0.25 LSB and /spl plusmn/0.4 LSB of INL and DNL, respectively. The input capacitance is 170 fF for each A/D converter. The DFE tap coefficient is adjustable from 0 to 0.25 with 6-bits of programmable weight. With a DFE coefficient of 0.2, the measured DFE performance shows 2.5 dB of amplitude boosting for a 3-GHz input sinusoid. The 1.8/spl times/1.6 mm/sup 2/ chip consumes 780 mW of power from a 1.8-V power supply.     

Sub-1-V design techniques for high-linearity multistage/pipelined analog-to-digital converters

The design of an ultra-low-voltage multistage (two-stage algorithmic) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) employing the opamp-reset switching technique is described. A highly linear input sampling circuit accommodates truly low-voltage sampling from external input signal source. A radix-based digital calibration technique is used to compensate for component mismatches and reduced opamp gain under low supply voltage. The radix-based scheme is based on a half-reference multiplying digital-to-analog converter structure, where the error sources seen by both the reference and input signal paths are made identical for a given stage. The prototype ADC was fabricated in a 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS process. The prototype integrated circuit dissipates 9 mW at 0.9-V supply with an input signal range of 0.9 V/sub p-p/ differential. The calibration of the ADC improves the signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio from 40 to 55 dB and the spurious-free dynamic range from 47 to 75 dB.