A 0.8-V 0.25-mW Current-Mirror OTA With 160-MHz GBW in 0.18-μm CMOS

A low-voltage low-power CMOS operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) with near rail-to-rail output swing is presented in this brief. The proposed circuit is based on the current-mirror OTA topology. In addition, several circuit techniques are adopted to enhance the voltage gain. Simulated from a 0.8-V supply voltage, the proposed OTA achieves a 62-dB dc gain and a gain-bandwidth product of 160 MHz while driving a 2-pF load. The OTA is designed in a 0.18-mum CMOS process. The power consumption is 0.25 mW including the common-mode feedback circuit     

A 900-MHz 1-V CMOS frequency synthesizer

A 900-MHz 1-V frequency synthesizer has been fabricated in a standard 0.35-μm CMOS technology. The frequency synthesizer consists of a divide-by-128/129 and 64/65 dual-modulus prescaler, phase-frequency detector, charge pump, and voltage-doubler circuit with an external voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) and passive loop filter. The on-chip voltage-doubler circuit converts the 1-V supply voltage to the higher voltage which supplies the prescaler internally. In this way, the 900-MHz 1-V frequency synthesizer with an external VCO can be achieved. The measured phase noise is -112.7 dBc/Hz at a 100-kHz offset from the carrier, and the synthesizer dissipates 3.56 mW (not including VCOs) from a single 1-V supply when the switching frequency of the on-chip voltage doubler is 200 kHz and the power efficiency of the voltage doubler is 77.8%. The total chip area occupies 0.73 mm²     

A 1-V CMOS Current Reference With Temperature and Process Compensation

A 1-V current reference fabricated in a standard CMOS process is described. Temperature compensation is achieved from a bandgap reference core using a transimpedance amplifier in order to generate an intermediate voltage reference, V_REF. This voltage applied to the gate of a carefully sized nMOS output transistor provides a reference drain current, I_REF , nearly independent of temperature by mutual compensation of mobility and threshold voltage variations. The circuit topology allows for compensation of threshold voltage variation due to process parameters as well. The current reference has been fabricated in a standard 0.18-mum CMOS process. Results from nineteen samples measured over a temperature range of 0degC to 100degC , showed values of I_REF of 144.3 muA plusmn 7% and V_REF of 610.9 mV plusmn 2% due to the combined effect of temperature and process variations.     

A 1-MHz High-Efficiency 12-V Buck Voltage Regulator With a New Current-Source Gate Driver

This paper proposes a new current-source gate drive circuit for a synchronous buck converter. The proposed driver can drive two MOSFETs independently with different drive currents for optimal design. For the control MOSFET, the optimal design involves a tradeoff between switching loss reduction and drive circuit loss; while for the synchronous-rectifier MOSFET, the optimal design involves a tradeoff between body diode conduction loss and drive circuit loss. Furthermore, the new drive circuit can achieve: 1) significant switching loss reduction; 2) gate energy recovery and high gate drive voltage to reduce $R_{{bf DS}({bf ON})}$ conduction losses; 3) reduced conduction loss and reverse recovery loss of the body diode; and 4) zero-voltage switching of all the drive switches. The improved driver using integrated inductors is presented with multiphase buck voltage regulators (VRs) to reduce the number of magnetic cores and the core loss. The experimental results prove that a significant efficiency improvement has been achieved. At $ hbox{1.5-V}$ output, the new driver improves the efficiency from 84% using a conventional driver to 87.3% at 20 A, and at 30 A, from 79.4% to 82.8%. Overall, the new driver approach is attractive from the standpoints of both performance and cost-effectiveness.      

A 1.5-V 50-MHz pseudodifferential CMOS sample-and-hold circuit with low hold pedestal

This paper describes the design strategy and implementation of a low-voltage pseudodifferential double-sampled timing-skew-insensitive sample-and-hold (S/H) circuit with low hold pedestal based on the Miller-effect scheme. The S/H circuit employs bootstrapped switches in order to facilitate low voltage operation. The design considerations for each building block are described in detail. The S/H circuit has been designed using a 0.35-/spl mu/m 2P4M CMOS technology and experimental results are presented. The 1.5-V S/H circuit operates up to a sampling frequency of 50 MHz with less than -54.6 dB of total harmonic distortion for an input sinusoidal amplitude of 0.8 V/sub pp/. In these conditions, a differential hold pedestal of less than 0.8 mV, 1.6 ns acquisition time at 0.8-V step input, and 0.8 V/sub pp/ full-scale differential input range are achieved.     

A 1-V CMOS Pseudo-Differential Amplifier With Multiple Common-Mode Stabilization and Frequency Compensation Loops

This paper presents an operational amplifier for a 1-V supply voltage. It comprises three gain stages with ac-boosting and buffered Miller feedback compensation circuits. The implementation uses a standard 0.35-mum CMOS process ( V and V). To accommodate maximum voltage headroom between power rails, a pseudo-differential structure is adopted in this amplifier. The large common-mode gain associated with the structure is suppressed by two common-mode stabilization loops. The amplifier driving 100-pF loads achieves a 4.3-MHz gain-bandwidth product. The settling time of a 1- input step signal is 1.1s. The amplifier consumes 249 muW and occupies 0.06-mm silicon area.     

A 1-V 1.8-MHz CMOS switched-opamp SC filter with rail-to-railoutput swing

A low-voltage switched capacitor (SC) filter operated from a single 1 V supply and realized in a standard 0.5-μm CMOS technology is presented. Proper operation is obtained using the switched-opamp technique without any clock voltage multiplier or low-threshold devices. This makes the circuit compatible with future deep submicrometer technology. As opposed to previous switched-opamp implementations, the filter uses a fully differential topology. This allows operation with a rail-rail output swing and reduction of the number of opamps required to build high order infinite impulse response (IIR) filters. On the other hand, a low-voltage common-mode feedback (CMFB) circuit is required. In addition, the circuit uses an opamp which is only partially turned off during the off phase. This enables an increase in the maximum sampling frequency. The filter implements a bandpass response (f_s/f _o=4, Q=7) and it has been characterized with a 1.8 MHz sampling frequency. Its power consumption is about 160 μW. The filter is still fully functional down to 0.9 V supply voltage     

A 0.5-V Wideband Amplifier for a 1-MHz CT Complex Delta-Sigma Modulator

This brief presents a fully differential wideband amplifier for 0.5-V supply. The amplifier employs a gate-input two-stage topology and a dc common-mode feedback circuit with a Miller-amplified capacitor for frequency compensation. Designed in a 130-nm triple-well complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor process with regular $V_{T}$ transistors, the amplifier achieves a simulated performance of 51-dB dc open-loop gain, 112-MHz unity gain bandwidth, and 67 $^{ circ}$ phase margin with a load of 6.5 pF/19.6 $hbox{k}Omega$ , and consumes 600 $muhbox{W}$ at 0.5-V supply. The proposed amplifier is incorporated in a continuous-time complex Delta-Sigma modulator with a 1-MHz signal bandwidth and 64$times$ oversampling ratio. In the simulations, the modulator achieves a 72.5-dB signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio and consumes 2.3 mW at 0.5 V.      

A 2.7-V 900-MHz CMOS LNA and mixer

A CMOS low-noise amplifier (LNA) and a mixer for RF front-end applications are described. A current reuse technique is described that increases amplifier transconductance for the LNA and mixer without increasing power dissipation, compared to standard topologies. At 900 MHz, the LNA minimum noise figure (NF) is 1.9 dB, input third-order intercept point (IIP3) is -3.2 dBm and forward gain is 15.6 dB. With a 1-GHz local oscillator (LO) and a 900-MHz RF input, the mixer minimum double sideband noise figure (DSB NF) is 5.8 dB, IIP3 is -4.1 dBm, and power conversion gain is 8.8 dB. The LNA and mixer, respectively, consume 20 mW and 7 mW from a 2.7 V power supply. The active areas of the LNA and mixer are 0.7 mm×0.4 mm and 0.7 mm×0.2 mm, respectively. The prototypes were fabricated in a 0.5-μm CMOS process     

A fully-differential OTA based on CMOS cascode inverters operating from 1-V power supply

A low voltage operating fully-differential CMOS OTA construction, which uses dual-input CMOS cascode inverters, is proposed. The OTA is a two-stage configuration with dual-input CMOS cascode inverters at the input stage, and traditional CMOS inverters in the output stage, with a common-mode feedback path from the output terminals to one of the input terminals of cascode inverters. In order to effectively reduce its threshold voltages by bulk bias technique, the OTA has been designed and fabricated by using a 0.15 μm triple-well CMOS process. The OTA successfully operated from 1-V power supply, with 59 dB of differential voltage gain, 80.9 dB of CMRR and 25 MHz of unity gain frequency, at 60 μA of current consumption.     

A 2-V 10.7-MHz CMOS limiting amplifier/RSSI

This paper presents low-voltage low-power CMOS circuit design techniques for an intermediate frequency (IF) limiting amplifier and received signal strength indicator (RSSI). The architecture of the limiting amplifier and RSSI employed is determined by the optimal power consumption for a specified speed, overall gain, and accuracy. Each gain cell of the limiting amplifier employs folded diode load for low-voltage operation. Offset is reduced by a cross-connected source-coupled pair offset subtractor that is along the signal path. Full-wave current rectification and summation are employed in the RSSI circuit to achieve high precision while maintaining low voltage and low power. Using a single 2-V supply voltage, measured results demonstrate the input dynamic range is larger than 75 dB for 10.7-MHz IF application. The prototype occupies an active area of 0.4 mm² using a 0.6-μm digital CMOS technology. The power dissipation is 6.2 mW     

1-V 100-MHz embedded SRAM techniques for battery-operatedMTCMOS/SIMOX ASICs

Multithreshold-voltage CMOS (MTCMOS) has a great advantage of lowering physical threshold voltages without increasing the power dissipation due to large subthreshold leakage currents. This paper presents the embedded SRAM techniques for high-speed low-power MTCMOS/SIMOX application-specified integrated circuits (ASICs) that are operated with a single battery cell of around 1 V. In order to increase SRAM operating frequency, a pseudo-two stage pipeline architecture is proposed. The address decoder using a pass-transistor-type NAND gate and a segmented power switch presents a short clocked wordline selection time. The large bitline delay in read operations is greatly shortened with a new memory cell using extra low-V_th nMOSs. The small readout signal from memory cells is detected with a high-speed MTCMOS sense amplifier, in which a pMOS bitline selector is merged. The wasted power dissipation in writing data is reduced to zero with a self-timed writing action. A 8 K-words×16-bits SRAM test chip, fabricated with a 0.35-μm MTCMOS/SIMOX process (shortened effective channel length of 0.17 μm is available), has demonstrated a 100-MHz operation under the worst power-supply condition of 1 V. At a typical 1.2 V, the power dissipation during the standby time is 0.2-μW and that of a 100-MHz operation with a checkerboard test pattern is 14 mW for single fan-in loads     

Three-Stage CMOS OTA for Large Capacitive Loads With Efficient Frequency Compensation Scheme

A simple compensation strategy, which employs passive components only, is adopted to design a three-stage operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) suitable for driving high capacitive loads. Compared to the classical nested Miller compensation technique, the new solution exploits two additional resistors and allows a reduction in the values of the compensation capacitors of about an order of magnitude. The OTA was fabricated using 0.35-mum CMOS technology and exhibits a 1.4-MHz gain-bandwidth with a load of 500 pF     

A 50-MHz multibit sigma-delta modulator for 12-b 2-MHz A/Dconversion

The authors examine the application of oversampling techniques to analog-to-digital conversion at rates exceeding 1 MHz. A cascaded multibit sigma-delta (ΣΔ) modulator that substantially reduces the oversampling ratio required for 12-b conversion while avoiding stringent component matching requirements is introduced. Issues concerning the design and implementation of the modulator are presented. At a sampling rate of 50 MHz and an oversampling ratio of 24, an implementation of the modulator in a 1-μm CMOS technology achieves a dynamic range of 74 dB at a Nyquist conversion rate of 2.1 MHz. The experimental modulator is a fully differential circuit that operates from a single 5-V power supply and does not require calibration or component trimming     

A 2-V 900-MHz monolithic CMOS dual-loop frequency synthesizer forGSM receivers

A 900-MHz monolithic CMOS dual-loop frequency synthesizer suitable for GSM receivers is presented. Implemented in a 0.50-μm CMOS technology and at a 2-V supply voltage, the dual-loop frequency synthesizer occupies a chip area of 2.64 mm² and consumes a low power of 34 mW. The measured phase noise of the synthesizer is -121.8 dBc/Hz at 600-kHz offset, and the measured spurious levels are -79.5 and -82.0 dBc at 1.6 and 11.3 MHz offset, respectively     

A 0.25-μm CMOS 0.9-V 100-MHz DSP core

This paper describes a 0.25-μm CMOS 0.9-V 100-MHz DSP core which is composed of a 2-mW 16-b multiplier-accumulator and a 1.5-mW 8-kb SRAM. High-speed operation with a supply of less than 1 V has been achieved by developing 0.25-μm CMOS technology, reducing threshold voltage to 0.3 V, developing tristate inverter 3-2/4-2 adders for the multiplier, realizing small bit-line swing operation for the SRAM, and so on. The adder circuits operate faster than conventional adders at low supply voltages. In addition, short-circuit current and area for diffusion contact are reduced. Small bit-line swing operation has been realized by using a device-deviation immune sense amplifier. Leakage current during sleep mode was reduced by the use of high threshold voltage MOSFETs     

A 1.5-V 900-MHz monolithic CMOS fast-switching frequencysynthesizer for wireless applications

A new architecture for phase-locked loop frequency synthesizers which employs a switchable-capacitor array to tune the output frequency and a dual-path loop filter operating in the capacitance domain is proposed. It provides many advantages, including simplified analog circuitry, low supply voltage, low power consumption, small chip area, fast frequency switching, and high immunity of substrate noise. Implemented in a standard 0.5-μm CMOS process, a fully integrated fractional-N synthesizer prototype with a third-order sigma-delta modulator is designed for 1.5 V and consumes 30 mW. The total chip area is, 0.9 × 1.1 mm². The settling time is less than 100 μs and the phase noise is -118 dBc/Hz at 600-kHz offset     

A 1.0-V 230-MHz column access embedded DRAM for portable MPEGapplications

This paper describes a 32-Mb embedded DRAM macro fabricated using 0.13-μm triple-well 4-level Cu embedded DRAM technology, which is suitable for portable equipment of MPEG applications. This macro can operate 230-MHz random column access even at 1.0-V power supply condition. The peak power consumption is suppressed to 198 mW in burst operation. The power-down standby mode, which suppresses the leakage current consumption of peripheral circuitry, is also prepared for portable equipment. With the collaboration of array circuit design and the fine Cu metallization technology, macro size of 18.9 mm² and cell efficiency of 51.3% are realized even with dual interface and triple test functions implemented     

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     

A 1-V 10-MHz clock-rate 13-bit CMOS ΔΣ modulator usingunity-gain-reset op amps

The problem of low-voltage operation of switched-capacitor circuits is discussed, and several solutions based on using unity-gain-reset of the opamps are proposed. Due to the feedback structure, the opamps do not need to be switched off during the reset phase of the operation, and hence can be clocked at a high rate. A low-voltage ΔΣ modulator, incorporating pseudodifferential unity-gain-reset opamps, is described. A test chip, realized in a 0.35-μm CMOS process and clocked at 10.24 MHz, provided a dynamic range of 80 dB and a signal-to-noise+distortion (SNDR) ratio of 78 dB for a 20-kHz signal bandwidth, and a dynamic range of 74 dB and SNDR of 70 dB for a 50-kHz bandwidth, with a 1-V supply voltage