Temperature compensated and gated CMOS ring oscillator for time-to-digital converter application

This paper presents a CMOS voltage controlled ring oscillator with temperature compensation for low power time-to-digital converters (TDCs). In order to maintain the oscillation frequency stable, a novel compensation circuit is proposed through adaptively sensing temperature variations. This design has been implemented in TSMC 0.35 μm CMOS standard process with an active area of under 0.039 mm². Experimental results show that the clock frequency is around 159.0 MHz only with a power consumption of 550 μA. As respective to the room temperature the maximum frequency variation is between ?3.46 and +3.08 % under temperature range of ?40 to 85 °C. The bit error time induced by clock jitter is limited within 4.8 % in the whole clock period, and the differential nonlinearity of the TDC is less than 0.408 LSB.     

基于门控多路环形振荡器的时间数据转换器

A gated ring oscillator(GRO) based time-to-digital converter(TDC) is presented.To enhance the resolution of the TDC,a multi-path structure for the GRO is used to achieve a higher oscillation frequency and an input stage is also presented to equivalently amplify the input time difference with a gain of 2.The GRO based TDC circuit is fabricated in TSMC 65 nm CMOS technology and the core area is about 0.02 mm~2.According to the measurement results,the effective resolution of this circuit is better than 4.22 ps under a 50 MHz clock frequency. With a 1 ns input range,the maximum clock frequency of this circuit is larger than 200 MHz.Under a 1 V power supply,with a 200-800 ps input time difference,the measured power consumption is 1.24 to 1.72 mW at 50 MHz clock frequency and 1.73 to 2.20 mW at 200 MHz clock frequency.     

基于TDC芯片的LCR参数测量仪

在采用矢量电流电压法测量阻抗时,目前大多采用两种方法来实现阻抗矢量虚实部的分离。一种是通过相敏检波器来实现,另一种是通过高速ADC采样信号,通过比较零点位置获取相位差信息来实现。前一种方法实现复杂且测量速度不易提高,后面的一种测量方法成本太高。本文主要介绍将TDC芯片应用于经典的电流电压法阻抗测量中,用TDC芯片获取被测信号的相位差信息,从而实现复阻抗实部与虚部分离的新方法,在降低成本的同时实现高精度LCR参数测量。     

A time-to-digital converter based AFC for wideband frequency synthesizer

The automatic frequency calibration (AFC) technique is routinely used in wideband frequency synthesizers that contain multiple voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) tuning curves. In this paper, a counter-based AFC that uses a time-to-digital converter (TDC) in the counting process is developed. The TDC is able to capture the fractional VCO cycle information within the counting window. This significantly improves the frequency detection accuracy over the existing counter-based AFC techniques. In addition, a quantitative model is developed to determine the minimally required error-free AFC calibration time for a given VCO tuning curve characteristic. An AFC circuit using the proposed TDC-based counter is designed in a 0.13-μm CMOS technology. Simulation results show that the proposed AFC significantly improves the frequency detection accuracy and consequently for a given frequency detection resolution reduces the AFC calibration time. The simulated error-free AFC time is <2.5 μs with a frequency resolution of 0.04 %.     

基于TDC技术的光纤延迟时间测试与实现

提出了一种基于时间数字转换(TDC)技术的光纤延迟线延迟时间测试方法,介绍了以TDC-GPX芯片为核心,通过对两路脉冲激光的高速差分检测的光纤延迟测试系统,并对各个功能模块和测试流程进行了说明,为光纤延迟线延迟时间的快速、准确测量提供一种解决方案.     

An 11-bit high-resolution and adjustable-range CMOS time-to-digital converter for space science instruments

An 11-bit time-to-digital converter (TDC) with high time resolution implemented in CMOS VLSI is presented. The TDC operates with a wide and clock-adjustable resolution of LSB = 50 ps to 1 ns, and with good power supply, temperature, and environmental effects compensation. The dead time of the measurement is as low as 0.5 /spl mu/s and the event rate can be as high as 1 MEvents/s. The power dissipation is a function of event rate and clock frequency; the TDC dissipates <10 mW at an event rate of 100 kEvents/s and LSB=100 ps. The TDC was incorporated in a complete time-of-flight (TOF) system on a chip that in addition included front-end analog signal processing. The TOF chip is already flying onboard the HENA (High Energy Neutral Atoms) instrument of the IMAGE NASA mission, launched in 2000, and is part of many other instruments such as particles, X-ray, and the laser altimeter of the Messenger spacecraft.     

A ring oscillator based on HIFETs

A hygroscopic insulator field-effect transistor (HIFET) ring oscillator with three inverters was built and tested under ambient laboratory conditions. An operating voltage of −2 V was used, yielding a peak-to-peak output voltage of 1.1 V and an oscillation frequency of 28 mHz. For Spice (simulation program with integrated circuit emphasis) simulation of the HIFET circuits the measured HIFET output characteristics were fitted to a DC (direct current) model and additional measurements were made to find the magnitude of the capacitive and resistive elements in the HIFET gate structure. The results indicated that HIFETs have a good potential for use in amplifier and sensor circuit applications where high operation speed is not crucial.     

Frequency-adjustable clock oscillator based on frequency-to-voltage converter

A frequency-adjustable clock oscillator based on a frequency-to-voltage converter is presented. A new architecture is employed without reference frequency input. The system model shows the conditions of system stability. A compensation circuit was used to cancel the variations of frequency over process and temperature. The range of output frequency is from 22.5-360 MHz, which is within +4.5% variation in worst cases. The circuit was designed in a 0.13 μm CMOS 3.3 V device process, occupying a chip area of about 0.05 mm². The clock oscillator can achieve 25 ps peak-to-peak jitter, 2 μs locked time and consume 5 m W at a 3.3 V supply voltage and 200 MHz output clock.     

A novel model on phase noise of ring oscillator based on last passage time

Ring oscillators' phase noise, when their delay cells are modeled as buffers and the noise sources assumed to be thermal noise, has some distinctive characteristics. We investigate one of the distinct characteristics, the threshold crossing property. The resulting model is shown to arise from the last passage time behavior of thermal noise present in the circuits. Simulation results on ring oscillators operating in gigahertz range and having timing jitter in picoseconds range confirm the model.     

Design of a 10 bit high resolution,high speed time-to-digital converter using a two-step pulse-train time amplifier

Ahigh resolution and fast conversion rate time-to-digital converter (TDC) design based on time amplifier (TA) is proposed. The pulse-train TA employs a two-step scheme. The input time interval is first amplified by a N-times TA and the effective time is extracted in pulse-train using a time-register. Then the resulted interval is further amplified by the other pulse-train amplifier to obtain the final result. The two-step TA can thus achieve large gain that is critical for high resolution TDC. Simulation results in 1.2 V, 65 nm technology showed that for a 10 bit TDC, a resolution of 0.8 ps and a conversion rate of 150 MS/s are achieved while consuming 2.1 mW power consumption.     

一种基于正交线偏振光的高精度方位测量方法

为了解决传统基于正弦波磁光调制的方位测量方法 存在小角度精确测量时信号微弱、处理难度大等问题,提出了一种基于正交线偏振光磁光调 制的方位精 确测量方法。首先简单阐述了传统方位测量原理,分析了小角度范围内测量时信 号微弱的根本原因;其次提出了改进的方位测量方法,在阐述测量装置结构原理 的基础上,建立了基于磁光调制后两束正交线偏振光的光强模型,通过分析发现 两路调制后混合信号中交流信号的极值点信息均与方位角相关,且同一位置对应 的极值点信息具有相位相反的特性,采用二者相减的方式增强了有用信号的幅 值,提高了数据采集精度。仿真结果表明,通过各种情况下与传统方法中参与方 位角计算的信号幅值对比,文中提出的方法能够明显增强信号幅值,利于提高数 据采集精度和方位测量精度。     

Resistive RAM variability monitoring using a ring oscillator based test chip

Common problems with Oxide-based Resistive Random Access Memory (so-called OxRRAM) are related to high variability in operating conditions and low yield. Although research has taken steps to resolve these issues, variability remains an important characteristic for OxRRAMs. In this paper, a test structure consisting of an OxRRAM matrix where each memory cell can be configured as a ring oscillator is introduced. The oscillation frequency of each memory cell is function of the cell resistance. Thus, the test structure provides within-die accurate information regarding OxRRAM cells variability. The test structure can be used as a powerful tool for process variability monitoring during a new process technology introduction but also for marginal cells detection during process maturity.     

An optoelectronic oscillator based on dual-lasers

A novel optoelectronic oscillator （OEO） based on dual-lasers is demonstrated in this paper. The oscillator takes advantage of the dual optical fiber loops with different mode separations, which induces the gain competition and leads to high sidemode suppressed ratio （SMSR）. Besides, the OEO can also suppress the random interference and the beating noise when single laser source is used. Finally, the results are as follows： the operating frequency is 4.998 GHz, the phase noise is 113 dBc/Hz at 10 kHz, the SMSR is more than 60 dB, and the time jitter is 289 fs.     

RS trigger based relaxation oscillator for temperature measurement circuit

Resistance-to-time converter is always used for digital temperature measurement. An reset-set （RS） trigger based, relaxation oscillator based temperature measurement circuit, which is used to convert the change of thermistor sensor into a frequency signal for later processing, has been presented in this article. The RS trigger, which is composed of two inverters designed with distinct logical transition threshold voltages by changing the metal-oxide-semiconductor （MOS） transistor gains, has the same function as the Schmitt trigger in the relaxation oscillator. The advantage of the RS trigger based Schmitt trigger is that it reduces the dependence to supply voltage, chip temperature, and process variation. This temperature measurement circuit has been applied in a clinical thermometer chip that can measure temperature to an accuracy of better than 0.05 ℃ down to 1.1 V battery voltage. It is fabricated in 0.5 μm double metal single poly complementary MOS （CMOS） process.     

基于电增益环腔选频特性的小型光电振荡器

为了进一步提高光电振荡器的实用性,提出了一种基于耦合型电增益环腔的小型化光电振荡器。利用电功分器和放大器构成电增益环腔,其梳状滤波效应可以有效对光电振荡器进行模式选择,结合直接调制半导体激光器,单模光纤和光电检测器,有效实现了小型化光电振荡器。理论上分析了电增益环腔的基本原理,并且通过仿真进行了验证。实验中获得了中心频率为12.624 GHz的微波信号,其相位噪声为-102 dBc/Hz@10 kHz。该方案在结构简单的条件下可以得到质量较高的射频信号,可以作为光电振荡器实用化的一种解决方法。     

精细调谐电增益环腔光电振荡器

为了有效实现光电振荡器(OEO)输出频率精细调谐 ,提出了一种基于电增益环腔(EGRR)的OEO。利用放大器、 滤波器和移相器构成可调谐EGRR,通过改变EGRR内信号的相位等效实现 环腔长度的改变,得到不同 频率的射频(RF)信号,RF信号与OEO产生的自由振荡信号电注入锁定,输出信号 的频率由锁定EGRR输出频 率的OEO模式决定,相位噪声由OEO决定。在简单结构实验的条件下,有 效实现了OEO输出频率精细调谐。实验结果表明,当光纤长为2km、EGRR长为0.5m时,得到 了频率为11.3GHz、边模抑制比(SMSR)为 48dB、可调谐范围为239MHz、调谐最小步长 为100kHz和相位噪声为－99dBc/Hz@10kHz的RF信号。     

An accurate pose measurement method of workpiece based on rapid extraction of local feature points

Ceramic sanitary products with complex curved surfaces are generally fragile and difficult to clamp. If the industrial robot is utilized to realize the automatic grinding of such products, the precise positioning of the product is required firstly. In this paper, an accurate pose measurement system for complex curved surface parts is designed by point cloud registration algorithm. In order to improve the stability of the system, this paper combines the advantages of normal vector features and fast point feature histogram (FPFH) features, and proposes a point cloud registration algorithm based on the rapid extraction of local feature points. Experimental results verify that the improved algorithm has improved both efficiency and accuracy, and the system can effectively achieve accurate positioning of products.