Minimizing the Supply Sensitivity of a CMOS Ring Oscillator Through Jointly Biasing the Supply and Control Voltages

A method to minimize the supply sensitivity of a CMOS ring oscillator is proposed through joint biasing of the supply and the control voltage. The technique can supplement a number of common supply rejection techniques and can be exploited to compensate for the noise coupling caused by the parasitic capacitance in the loop filter of a phase-locked loop (PLL). The proposed CMOS ring oscillator is designed and implemented with a charge-pump based PLL in 65-nm technology to demonstrate the robustness against the supply fluctuation. Taking advantage of the negative static supply sensitivity of the ring oscillator with proper combination of the bias voltages, the rms jitter of the 5.12-GHz output clock is reduced from 6.41 ps to 2.38 ps while subject to supply noise at 90 MHz.      

CMOS current reference with supply and temperature compensation

The dependency of CMOS current reference on supply voltage and temperature is compensated by simply subtracting two current outputs with the same dependencies on the supply voltage and temperature. With this compensation scheme, a self-biased CMOS current reference has been implemented in a 0.25 m standard CMOS technology. The current reference provides 10.45 muA output current, while the supply and temperature dependencies are 1700 ppm/V and 720 ppm/degC, respectively. The current reference occupies only 0.002 mm active area and can operate down to 1.1 V.     

Impulse sensitivity function-based phase noise study for low-power source-coupled CMOS multivibrators

In this paper, two micropower frequency references implemented with a 0.13- and a 0.25-μm CMOS process for low-power sensor applications are presented. Both circuits are based on a power-optimized source-coupled CMOS multivibrator. The 2.0-MHz frequency reference uses a nominal 1.8–2.5-V supply voltage. The 24.6/307.2-kHz frequency reference is an evolution of the 2.0-MHz reference and operates with a lower supply of 1.0 V and provides two active operating modes. With 1-pF load capacitances, the 2.0-MHz and 24.6/307.2-kHz frequency references typically consume 6.7 μA and 230/750 nA, respectively. After presenting experimental results relating to frequency trimming and frequency stability, this paper concentrates on the phase noise study of the proposed frequency references. The procedure used to apply the impulse sensitivity function-based (ISF) phase noise method to CMOS oscillators is described in detail. The phase noise results of both the implemented references obtained with this method agree well with the measurements.     

Calculation of the soft error rate of submicron CMOS logic circuits

A method to calculate the soft error rate (SER) of CMOS logic circuits with dynamic pipeline registers is described. This method takes into account charge collection by drift and diffusion. The method is verified by comparison of calculated SER's to measurement results. Using this method, the SER of a highly pipelined multiplier is calculated as a function of supply voltage for a 0.6 μm, 0.3 μm, and 0.12 μm technology, respectively. It has been found that the SER of such highly pipelined submicron CMOS circuits may become too high so that countermeasures have to be taken. Since the SER greatly increases with decreasing supply voltage, low-power/low-voltage circuits may show more than eight times the SER for half the normal supply voltage as compared to conventional designs     

Design of an Optimized 2.5 GHz CMOS Differential LC Oscillator with Nonlinear Analysis for MOS Varactor

The oscillation amplitude and supply current relations for a differential CMOS oscillator are derived by using an analytic method. A simplified model to predict the phase noise performance of the oscillator is developed. The large signal analysis of a nonlinear inversion mode MOS varactor is presented. The derived expressions can help to design an optimized oscillator in terms of minimum phase noise and power consumption. The validity of the method has been verified by designing an LC CMOS oscillator in a 0.25 μm CMOS technology. The predictions are in good agreement with simulation results over a wide range of supply voltage.     

Back-gate forward bias method for low-voltage CMOS digital circuits

The back-gate forward bias method suitable for present standard bulk CMOS processes has been promoted for low-voltage digital circuit application. A CMOS inverter employing the method has experimentally exhibited the ability of electrically adjusting the transition region of the dc voltage transfer characteristics. Transient measurement has further shown that the inverter with a back-gate forward bias of 0.4 V can operate at low supply voltages down to 0.6 V without significant loss in switching speed. Guidelines for ensuring proper implementation of the method in a bulk CMOS process have been set up against latch-up, parasitic bipolar, impact ionization, and stand by current. Following these guidelines, a cost-effective low power, low-voltage, high-density mixed mode CMOS analog/digital integrated circuits chip with both reasonable speed and improved precision has been projected for the first time     

A 1-GHz/0.9-mW CMOS/SIMOX divide-by-128/129 dual-modulus prescalerusing a divide-by-2/3 synchronous counter

An extremely low-power CMOS/SIMOX divide-by-128/129 dual-modulus prescaler that operates at up to 1 GHz and dissipates 0.9 mW at a supply voltage of 1 V is presented. The prescaler is capable of 2-GHz performance with dissipation of 7.2 mW at 2 V. This superior performance is primarily achieved by using an advanced ultrathin-film CMOS/SIMOX process technology combined with a circuit configuration that uses a divide-by-2/3 synchronous counter. Using these same technologies, a single-chip CMOS phase-locked-loop (PLL) LSI that uses the developed prescaler was fabricated. It can operate at up to 2 GHz while dissipating only 8.4 mW at a supply voltage of 2 V. Even at a lower supply voltage of 1.2 V, 1-GHz operation can be obtained with a corresponding power consumption of 1.4 mW. These results indicate that the high-speed and very-low-power features of CMOS/SIMOX technology could have an important impact on the development of future personal communication systems     

Silicon-gate n-well CMOS process by full ion-implantation technology

A silicon-gate n-well CMOS process for an application of digital circuits operated by TTL compatible supply voltage was developed. Full ion-implantation technology, a new photolithography technique, n⁺-doped polysilicon gate which contain no boron impurities, and thin gate oxide of 65 nm can realize CMOS circuits of 2-µm gate length. Average impurity concentrations measured from substrate bias effect of MOSFET's and junction depth are in good agreement with those expected from impurity profiles calculated by a simple diffusion theory. So, the process design for CMOS circuits operated by any supply voltage is possible, by adjusting threshold voltages. The process can easily be extended to n-MOS/CMOS process (E/D MOS and CMOS on the same chip), if a photomask to fabricate depletion-type n-MOSFET's is provided.     

New Curvature-Compensation Technique for CMOS Bandgap Reference With Sub-1-V Operation

A new sub-1-V curvature-compensated CMOS bandgap reference, which utilizes the temperature-dependent currents generated from the parasitic n-p-n and p-n-p bipolar junction transistor devices in the CMOS process, is presented. The new proposed sub-1-V curvature-compensated CMOS bandgap reference has been successfully verified in a standard 0.25-$muhboxm$CMOS process. The experimental results have confirmed that, with the minimum supply voltage of 0.9 V, the output reference voltage at 536 mV has a temperature coefficient of 19.5$hboxppm/^circhboxC$from 0$^circhboxC$to 100$~^circhboxC$. With a 0.9-V supply voltage, the measured power noise rejection ratio is$-hbox25.5~hboxdB$at 10 kHz.     

1.5 V four-quadrant CMOS current multiplier/divider

A low voltage CMOS four-quadrant current multiplier/divider circuit is presented. It is based on a compact V-I converter cell able to operate at very low supply voltages. Measurement results for an experimental prototype in a 0.8 /spl mu/m CMOS technology show good linearity for a /spl plusmn/15 /spl mu/A input current range and a 1.5 V supply voltage.     

A low-jitter 1.9-V CMOS PLL for UltraSPARC microprocessorapplications

A phase-locked loop (PLL) for CMOS UltraSPARC microprocessor applications uses a loop filter referenced to a quiet power supply and achieves measured clock period jitter of ±25 ps at 360 MHz. The fully integrated CMOS PLL uses a charge-pump phase/frequency detector, a single-capacitor loop filter, and a feedforward error correction architecture. Loop characteristics are analyzed and verified by measurements. The measured sensitivity of clock period jitter to supply voltage is 2.6 ps/100 mv over an analog supply-voltage range of 1.6-2.1 V; the measured output operating frequency range is 8.5-660 MHz. Fabricated in an area of 310×280 μm² in a 0.25-μm CMOS process, the PLL dissipates 25 mW from a 1.9-V supply     

Current mode ADC design in a 0.5-μm CMOS process

This paper presents a pipelined current mode analog to digital converter (ADC) designed in a 0.5-μm CMOS process. Adopting the global and local bias scheme, the number of interconnect signal lines is reduced numerously, and the ADC exhibits the advantages of scalability and portability. Without using linear capacitance,this ADC can be implemented in a standard digital CMOS process; thus, it is suitable for applications in the system on one chip (SoC) design as an analogue IP. Simulations show that the proposed current mode ADC can operate in a wide supply range from 3 to 7 V and a wide quantization range from ±64 to ±256μA. Adopting the histogram testing method, the ADC was tested in a 3.3 V supply voltage/±64μA quantization range and a 5 V supply voltage/±256μA quantization range, respectively. The results reveal that this ADC achieves a spurious free dynamic range of 61.46dB, DNL/INL are -0.005 to +0.027 LSB/-0.1 to +0.2 LSB, respectively, under a 5 V supply voltage with a digital error correction technique.     

Threshold voltage-minimum gate length trade-off in buried channelPMOS devices for scaled supply voltage CMOS technologies

The trade-off between threshold voltage (V_th) and the minimum gate length (L_min) is discussed for optimizing the performance of buried channel PMOS transistors for low voltage/low power high-speed digital CMOS circuits. In a low supply voltage CMOS technology it is desirable to scale V_th and L_min for improved circuit performance. However, these two parameters cannot be scaled independently due to the channel punch-through effect. Statistical process/device modeling, split lot experiments, circuit simulations, and measurements are performed to optimize the PMOS transistor current drive and CMOS circuit speed. We show that trading PMOS transistor V_th for a smaller L_min results in faster circuits for low supply voltage (3.3 to 1.8 V) n⁺-polysilicon gate CMOS technology, Circuit simulation and measurements are performed in this study. Approximate empirical expressions are given for the optimum buried channel PMOS transistor V _th for minimizing CMOS circuit speed for cases involving: (1) constant capacitive load and (2) load capacitance proportional to MOS gate capacitance. The results of the numerical exercise are applied to the centering of device parameters of a 0.5 μm 3.3 V CMOS technology that (a) matches the speed of our 0.5 μm 5 V CMOS technology, and (b) achieves good performance down to 1.8 V power supply. For this process the optimum PMOS transistor V_th (absolute value) is approximately 0.85-0.90 V     

A 1-V 6-b 50-MSamples/s current-interpolating CMOS ADC

CMOS analog-to-digital converters (ADC's) require either bootstrapping techniques or low-threshold devices to function at low supply voltages. A 6-b 50-MSamples/s ADC in normal-threshold CMOS operates with a single battery cell as low as 0.9 V without bootstrapping. A current-interpolation approach is taken to configure a 1-V ADC system that does not allow more than one V_GS plus one V_DSsat between the supply rails. The prototype takes a rail-to-rail input and works with a single system clock. The chip fabricated in 0.35-μm CMOS occupies an area of 2.4×2 mm² and consumes 10 mW each in analog and digital supplies     

Dynamic Power Supply Current Testing for Open Defects in CMOS SRAMs

The detection of open defects in CMOS SRAM has been a time consuming process. This paper proposes a new dynamic power supply current testing method to detect open defects in CMOS SRAM cells. By monitoring a dynamic current pulse during a transition write operation or a read operation, open defects can be detected. In order to measure the dynamic power supply current pulse, a current monitoring circuit with low hardware overhead is developed. Using the sensor, the new testing method does not require any additional test sequence. The results show that the new test method is very efficient compared with other testing methods. Therefore, the new testing method is very attractive.     

A low-voltage low-power CMOS voltage reference based on subthreshold MOSFETs

This paper describes a CMOS voltage reference using only resistors and transistors working in weak inversion,without the need for any bipolar transistors.The voltage reference is designed and fabricated by a 0.18μm CMOS process.The experimental results show that the proposed voltage reference has a temperature coefficient of 370 ppm/℃at a 0.8 V supply voltage over the temperature range of-35 to 85℃and a 0.1%variation in supply voltage from 0.8 to 3 V.Furthermore,the supply current is only 1.5μA at 0.8 V supply voltage.     

A variable-frequency parallel I/O interface with adaptivepower-supply regulation

This paper presents a low-power high-speed CMOS signaling interface that operates off of an adaptively regulated supply. A feedback loop adjusts the supply voltage on a chain of inverters until the delay through the chain is equal to half of the input period. This voltage is then distributed to the I/O subsystem through an efficient switching power-supply regulator. Dynamically scaling the supply with respect to frequency leads to a simple and robust design consisting mostly of digital CMOS gates, while enabling maximum energy efficiency. The interface utilizes high-impedance drivers for operation across a wide range of voltages and frequencies, a dual-loop delay-locked loop for accurate timing recovery, and an input receiver whose bandwidth tracks with the I/O frequency to filter out high-frequency noise. Test chips fabricated in a 0.35-μm CMOS technology achieve transfer rates of 0.2-1.0 Gb/s/pin with a regulated supply ranging from 1.3-3.2 V     

新型的芯片间互连用CMOS/BiCMOS驱动器

从改善不同类型 IC芯片之间的电平匹配和驱动能力出发 ,设计了几例芯片间接口 (互连 )用 CMOS/Bi CMOS驱动电路 ,并提出了采用 0 .5 μm Bi CMOS工艺 ,制备所设计驱动器的技术要点和元器件参数。实验结果表明所设计驱动器既具有双极型电路快速、大电流驱动能力的特点 ,又具备 CMOS电路低压、低功耗的长处 ,因而它们特别适用于低电源电压、低功耗高速数字通信电路和信息处理系统。     

Low-power bandgap references featuring DTMOSTs

This paper describes two CMOS bandgap reference circuits featuring dynamic-threshold MOS transistors. The first bandgap reference circuit aims at application in low-voltage, low-power ICs that tolerate medium accuracy. The circuit runs at supply voltages down to 0.85 V while consuming only 1 μW; the die area is 0.063 mm² in a standard digital 0.35-μm CMOS process. The second bandgap reference circuit aims at high accuracy operation (σ=0.3%) without trimming. It consumes approximately 5 μW from a 1.8-V supply voltage and occupies 0.06 mm² in a standard 0.35-μm CMOS process     

一种用于音频Σ-ΔA/D转换器的CMOS带隙电压基准源

在传统带隙基准电压源电路结构的基础上,通过在运放中引入增益提高级,实现了一种用于音频Σ-ΔA/D转换器的CMOS带隙电压基准源。在一阶温度补偿下实现了较高的电源抑制比(PSRR)和较低的温度系数。该电路采用SIMC 0.18-μm CMOS工艺实现。利用Cadence/Spectre仿真器进行仿真,结果表明,在1.8 V电源电压下,-40～125℃范围内,温度系数为9.699 ppm/℃;在27℃下,10 Hz时电源抑制比为90.2 dB,20 kHz时为74.97 dB。