Low-voltage power-efficient adaptive biasing for CMOS amplifiers and buffers

Novel adaptive biasing techniques, suited for low-voltage operation, are presented. They provide small and accurately controlled quiescent currents, which are automatically boosted when an input signal is applied. Measurement results of an OTA using these techniques and fabricated in a 0.5 /spl mu/m CMOS technology show a slew rate of more than 40 V//spl mu/s for an 80 pF load capacitance and a static power consumption of only 140 /spl mu/W.     

Compact power-efficient class-AB CMOS exponential voltage to voltage converter

A novel implementation of a rail-to-rail exponential voltage to voltage converter is presented. It is based on a pseudo-exponential approximation that is easily achieved by the nonlinear currents of a class-AB transconductor. Measurement results for a 0.5 /spl mu/m CMOS technology show a 52 dB output voltage range with linearity error less than /spl plusmn/2 dB using a dual supply voltage of /spl plusmn/750 mV. The power dissipation is less than 40 /spl mu/W.     

Kickback noise reduction techniques for CMOS latched comparators

The latched comparator is a building block of virtually all analog-to-digital converter architectures. It uses a positive feedback mechanism to regenerate the analog input signal into a full-scale digital level. The large voltage variations in the internal nodes are coupled to the input, disturbing the input voltage-this is usually called kickback noise. This brief reviews existing solutions to minimize the kickback noise and proposes two new ones. HSPICE simulations of comparators implemented in a 0.18-/spl mu/m technology demonstrate their effectiveness.     

High-performance CMOS current comparator

A new high-performance CMOS current comparator is proposed. By adding two inverters in the feedback loop of Traff's comparator, the proposed comparator exhibits significant speed improvement especially for low input currents. Simulated in a 0.18 mum CMOS technology, the comparator achieves a 0.6 ns delay for a 100 nA input current at 1.8 V supply, which is about eight times faster than Traff's comparator.     

A CMOS 10-gb/s power-efficient 4-PAM transmitter

A novel power-efficient architecture for a multilevel pulse amplitude modulation (PAM) transmitter is proposed. A data-look-ahead technique is used to pre-switch the current sources so that drive current is reduced when transmitting small voltage levels. This technique also eliminates the need for a pre-driver block, which also saves transmitter power. Based on this architecture, a 4-PAM transmitter is designed in 0.18-/spl mu/m standard digital CMOS technology. The transmitter achieves 3.5 GS/s (7 Gb/s) with a 1.7-V supply and 5 GS/s (10 Gb/s) with a 2-V supply and it occupies an area of 0.16 mm/sup 2/. The output driver and the entire transmitter consume only 11.25 and 66 mW at 7 Gb/s (20 and 121 mW at 10 Gb/s), respectively, which are the lowest reported powers at this speed.     

CMOS Analog Rank Order Filters using positive feedback comparators

This work presents the design and experimental results of two Analog CMOS Rank Order Filters (ROF's), both of them based on the same operation principle and working with a specific analog CMOS comparator. The design of the two ROF's were performed with ON Semi 0.5 µm CMOS technology through MOSIS. Both comparators present a high gain due to the use of positive feedback. An Slew Rate (SR) of 2.6 V/μs@30 pF, including the parasitic capacitances of the experimental measurements setup, is shown.     

High-performance fully-depleted SOI RF CMOS

A T-gate structure has been implemented in the fabrication of fully depleted silicon-on-insulator MOSFETs. The T-gate process is fully compatible with the standard CMOS and the resulting reduction of gate-resistance significantly improved the RF performance. Measured f _max is 76 GHz and 63 GHz for n- and p-MOSFET with 0.2-μm gate length, respectively. At 2 GHz, a minimum noise figure of 0.4 dB was measured on an n-MOSFET with the T-gate structure     

High-performance subquarter-micrometer gate CMOS technology

A single phosphorous-doped poly(n⁺)-Si gate, a 3.5-nm-thick gate oxide, and a retrograde twin-well structure with trench isolation are used in the devices considered. Latchup holding voltages exceed 8 V. The transconductances of 0.22-μm-gate-length n and p MOSFETs are 450 and 330 mS/mm, respectively, and unloaded ring oscillator delays are 36 ps at 2 V. A static-type 1/2 divider utilizing nMOSFETs of 0.16-μm gate length and pMOSFETs of 0.22-μm gate length achieved a maximum operating frequency of 1.3 GHz and power of 5.6 mW at a supply voltage of 2 V     

High-performance current bleeding CMOS mixer

A high-performance mixer, known as the amplifier-driven double-balanced Gilbert-cell mixer, is proposed and implemented in 0.18 mum RFCMOS technology. A class-A amplifier-based current bleeding source is used to amplify the local oscillator signal and improve transconductance of the transconductor stage. The conversion gain is measured to be 17.5 dB when the LO power is 14 dBm only. The measured noise figure is better than 12.5 dB. The chip area is 1.2 1.3 mm and the power consumption is 12 mA at 1.5 V supply voltage.     

A power-efficient 14.8-GHz CMOS programmable frequency divider with quadrature outputs in 40-nm CMOS process

This paper presents a power-efficient CMOS frequency divider (FD) with wide-band programmable division ratio and quadrature outputs for high-speed data transmission applications. The proposed FD consists of a power-efficient programmable divider (PD), a complementary volt-age-to-time converter based duty-cycle correction circuit, and a compact quadrature divider (QD). In the chain of PD, a sense-amplifier based dynamic flip-flop is proposed for 2/3 divider cell to achieve high-speed operation with significantly reduced power consumption. In addition, a simple but effective QD based on two pseudo-differential voltage-controlled tri-state inverters, is beneficial for generating precise quadrature output signals. Measurement results in 40-nm CMOS process show that the proposed FD achieves a wide division range from 16 to 254 and operates up to 14.8 GHz while consuming the power of 540.6 μW at 1.1-V supply, and occupying the active area of 0.00267 mm² (114.6 μm × 23.3 μm).     

A 1-GHz signal bandwidth 6-bit CMOS ADC with power-efficient averaging

A 2-GS/s 6-bit ADC with time-interleaving is demonstrated in 0.18-/spl mu/m one-poly six-metal CMOS. A triple-cross connection method is devised to improve the offset averaging efficiency. Circuit techniques, enabling a state-of-the-art figure-of-merit of 3.5 pJ per conversion step, are discussed. The peak DNL and INL are measured as 0.32 LSB and 0.5 LSB, respectively. The SNDR and SFDR have achieved 36 and 48dB, respectively, with 4 MHz input signal. Near Nyquist input frequencies, the SNDR and SFDR maintain above 30 and 35.5dB, respectively, up to 941 MHz. The complete ADC, including front-end track-and-hold amplifiers and clock buffers, consumes 310 mW from a 1.8-V supply while operating at 2-GHz conversion rate. The prototype ADC occupies an active chip area of 0.5 mm/sup 2/.     

Analysis and design of amplifiers and comparators in CMOS 0.35 μm technology

Design techniques and CAD tools for digital systems are advancing rapidly at decreasing cost, while CMOS analog circuit design is related mostly with the individual experience and background of the designer. Therefore, the design of an analog circuit depends on several factors such as a reliable design methodology, good modeling and technology characterization. Most of this work focuses on the analysis of several analog circuits, including their functionality, using different design methodologies. Initially the determination of two key design parameters (slope factor n and early voltage VA) and the g_m/I_D characteristics were derived from simulations. Then, the analysis and design of three diferent analog circuits are presented. A comparison is made between two design methodology applied to an analog amplifier design. The first one is a conventional approach where transistors are in saturation. The second one is based on the g_m/I_D characteristic, that allows a unified synthesis methodology in all regions of operation of the transistor. The analog modules for comparison and continuous filtering, that find vast applications today, are then analyzed and designed with the parameters and methodology proposed.     

High-performance single clock cycle CMOS comparator

A novel comparison algorithm is introduced, which uses a parallel MSB checking method instead of the traditional priority-encoding based comparison algorithm. Fast dynamic NOR gates are used instead of high-fanin NAND gates and this results in significant improvement in performance over the traditional design. The design was realised in AMS 0.35 /spl mu/m technology. It is shown that the proposed design is 22% faster than the existing fastest single-cycle comparator based on priority encoder.     

High resolution CMOS current comparators: design and applications to current-mode function generation

This paper uses fundamental models to derive design conditions for maximum speed and resolution in CMOS transimpedance comparators. We distinguish two basic comparator architectures depending on whether the input sensing node is resistive or capacitive, and show that each type yields advantages for different ranges of input current. Then, we introduce a class of current comparator structures which use nonlinear sensing and/or feedback to combine the advantages of capacitive-input and resistive-input architectures. Two members of this class are presented demonstrating resolution levels (measured on silicon prototypes) in the range of pAs. They exhibit complementary functional features: one, the current steering comparator, displays better transient response in the very comparison function, while operation of the other, the current switch comparator, is easily extended to support systematic generation of nonlinear transfer functions in current domain. The paper explores also this latter extension, and presents current-mode circuit blocks for systematic generation of nonlinear functions based on piecewise-linear (PWL) approximation. Proposals made in the paper are demonstrated via CMOS prototypes in two single-poly CMOS n-well technologies: 2m and 1.6m. These prototypes show measured input current comparison range of 140 dB, resolution and offset below 10 pA, and operation speed two orders of magnitude better than that of conventional resistive-input circuits. Also, measurements from the PWL prototypes show excellent rectification properties (down to a few pAs) and small linearity errors (down to 0.13%).     

A power-efficient 10-bit 40-MS/s sub-sampling pipelined CMOS analog-to-digital converter

This paper presents a 10-bit 40-MS/s pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC) in a 0.13-μm CMOS process for subsampling applications. A simplified opamp-sharing scheme between two successive pipelined stages is proposed to reduce the power consumption. For subsampling, a cost-effective fast input-tracking switch with high linearity is introduced to sample the input signal up to 75 MHz. A two-stage amplifier with hybrid frequency compensation is developed to achieve both high bandwidth and large swing with low power dissipation. The measured result shows that the ADC achieves over 77 dB spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) and 57.3 dB signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio (SNDR) within the first Nyquist zone and maintains over 70 dB SFDR and 55.3 dB SNDR for input signal up to 75 MHz. The peak differential nonlinearity (DNL) and integral nonlinearity (INL) are ±0.2 LSB and ±0.3 LSB, respectively. The ADC consumes 15.6 mW at the sampling rate of 40 MHz from a 1.2-V supply voltage, and achieves a figure-of-merit (FOM) value of 0.22 pJ per conversion step.     

High-performance low-power CMOS memories using silicon-on-sapphire technology

Complementary MOS silicon-on-sapphire inverters fabricated using silicon-gate technology and 5-/spl mu/m channel-length devices has achieved nanosecond propagation delays and picojoule dynamic power-x delay products. In addition to high switching speed and low dynamic power, inverters with low leakage currents and therefore low quiescent power have been obtained. Two complex CMOS/SOS memories that realize the performance attributes of the individual inverters have been fabricated. An aluminium-gate 256-bit fully decoded static random-access memory features a typical access time of 50 ns at 10 V with a power dissipation of 0.4 /spl mu/W/bit (quiescent) and 10 /spl mu/W/bit (dynamic). The access time at 5 V is typically 95 ns. A silicon-gate 256-bit dynamic shift register features operation at clock signals of 200 MHz at 10 V and 75 MHz at 5 V. The dynamic power dissipation at 50 MHz and 5 V is typically 90 /spl mu/W/bit.     

一种高性能CMOS电荷泵的设计

设计了一种用于电荷泵锁相环的CMOS电荷泵电路。电路中采用三对自偏置高摆幅共源共栅电流镜进行泵电流镜像,增大了低电压下电荷泵的输出电阻,并实现了上下两个电荷泵的匹配。为了消除单端电荷泵存在的电荷共享问题,引入了带宽幅电压跟随的半差分电流开关结构,使电荷泵性能得以提高。设计采用0．18-μm标准CMOS工艺。电路仿真结果显示,在0．35V到1．3V范围内泵电流匹配精度达0．9％,电路工作频率达250MHz。     

High-performance designs with CMOS analog standard cells

The authors describe an approach to the design of complex analog functions comprising the major functions normally encountered in analog systems using a library of 3-/spl mu/m CMOS analog cells. It is shown that through the use of a fixed-height cell system and a predefined connection system, circuits can be designed that suffer little, if any, area penalty when compared to a full custom layout. In addition, the overall system performance achieved can equal that of some full custom designs.     

一种高性能CMOS电荷泵的设计

设计了一种用于电荷泵锁相环的CMOS电荷泵电路。电路中采用3对自偏置高摆幅共源共栅电流镜进行泵电流镜像,增大了低电压下电荷泵的输出电阻,实现了上下两个电荷泵的匹配。为消除单端电荷泵存在的电荷共享问题,引入了带宽幅电压跟随的半差分电流开关结构,使电荷泵性能得以提高。设计采用0.18μm标准CMOS工艺。电路仿真结果显示,在0.35～1.3V范围内泵电流匹配精度达0.9%,电路工作频率达250MHz。     

A power-efficient 12-bit analog-to-digital converter with a novel constant-resistance CMOS input sampling switch

Apower-efficient 12-bit40-MS/spipelineanalog-to-digitalconverter（ADC）implementedina0.13 μm CMOS technology is presented. A novel CMOS bootstrapping switch, which offers a constant on-resistance over the entire input signal range, is used at the sample-and-hold front-end to enhance the dynamic performance of the pipelined ADC. By implementing with 2.5-bit-per-stage and a simplified amplifier sharing architecture between two successive pipeline stages, a very competitive power consumption and small die area can be achieved. Meanwhile, the substrate-biasing-effect attenuated T-type switches are introduced to reduce the crosstalk between the two op- amp sharing successive stages. Moreover, a two-stage gain boosted recycling folded cascode （RFC） amplifier with hybrid frequency compensation is developed to further reduce the power consumption and maintain the ADC＇s performance simultaneously. The measured results imply that the ADC achieves a spurious-free dynamic range （SFDR） of 75.7 dB and a signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio （SNDR） of 62.74 dB with a 4.3 MHz input signal; the SNDR maintains over 58.25 dB for input signals up to 19.3MHz. The measured differential nonlinearity （DNL） and integral nonlinearity （INL） are -0.43 to ＋0.48 LSB and -1.62 to ＋ 1.89 LSB respectively. The prototype ADC consumes 28.4 mW under a 1.2-V nominal power supply and 40 MHz sampling rate, transferring to a figure- of-merit （FOM） of 0.63 pJ per conversion-step.