Digital Intensive Mixed Signal Circuits with In-situ Performance Monitors

University of Minnesota Ph.D. dissertation.November 2016. Major: Electrical/Computer Engineering. Advisor: Chris Kim. 1 computer file (PDF); x, 137 pages.Digital intensive circuit design techniques of different mixed-signal systems such as data converters, clock generators, voltage regulators etc. are gaining attention for the implementation of modern microprocessors and system-on-chips (SoCs) in order to fully utilize the benefits of CMOS technology scaling. Moreover different performance improvement schemes, for example, noise reduction, spur cancellation, linearity improvement etc. can be easily performed in digital domain. In addition to that, increasing speed and complexity of modern SoCs necessitate the requirement of in-situ measurement schemes, primarily for high volume testing. In-situ measurements not only obviate the need for expensive measurement equipments and probing techniques, but also reduce the test time significantly when a large number of chips are required to be tested. Several digital intensive circuit design techniques are proposed in this dissertation along with different in-situ performance monitors for a variety of mixed signal systems. First, a novel beat frequency quantization technique is proposed in a two-step VCO quantizer based ADC implementation for direct digital conversion of low amplitude bio- potential signals. By direct conversion, it alleviates the requirement of the area and power consuming analog-frontend (AFE) used in a conventional ADC designs. This prototype design is realized in a 65nm CMOS technology. Measured SNDR is 44.5dB from a 10mVpp, 300Hz signal and power consumption is only 38μW. Next, three different clock generation circuits, a phase-locked loop (PLL), a multiplying delay-locked loop (MDLL) and a frequency-locked loop (FLL) are presented. First a 0.4-to-1.6GHz sub-sampling fractional-N all digital PLL architecture is discussed that utilizes a D-flip-flop as a digital sub-sampler. Measurement results from a 65nm CMOS test-chip shows 5dB lower phase noise at 100KHz offset frequency, compared to a conventional architecture. The Digital PLL (DPLL) architecture is further extended for a digital MDLL implementation in order to suppress the VCO phase noise beyond the DPLL bandwidth. A zero-offset aperture phase detector (APD) and a digital- to-time converter (DTC) are employed for static phase-offset (SPO) cancellation. A unique in-situ detection circuitry achieves a high resolution SPO measurement in time domain. A 65nm test-chip shows 0.2-to-1.45GHz output frequency range while reducing the phase-noise by 9dB compared to a DPLL. Next, a frequency-to-current converter (FTC) based fractional FLL is proposed for a low accuracy clock generation in an extremely low area for IoT application. High density deep-trench capacitors are used for area reduction. The test-chip is fabricated in a 32nm SOI technology that takes only 0.0054mm2 active area. A high-resolution in-situ period jitter measurement block is also incorporated in this design. Finally, a time based digital low dropout (DLDO) regulator architecture is proposed for fine grain power delivery over a wide load current dynamic range and input/output voltage in order to facilitate dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS). High- resolution beat frequency detector dynamically adjusts the loop sampling frequency for ripple and settling time reduction due to load transients. A fixed steady-state voltage offset provides inherent active voltage positioning (AVP) for ripple reduction. Circuit simulations in a 65nm technology show more than 90% current efficiency for 100X load current variation, while it can operate for an input voltage range of 0.6V – 1.2V

A Fully Differential Phase-Locked Loop With Reduced Loop Bandwidth Variation

Phase-Locked Loops (PLLs) are essential building blocks to wireless communications as they are responsible for implementing the frequency synthesizer within a wireless transceiver. In order to maintain the rapid pace of development thus far seen in wireless technology, the PLL must develop accordingly to meet the increasingly demanding requirements imposed on it by today's (and tomorrows) wireless devices. Specically this entails meeting stringent noise specications imposed by modern wireless standards, meeting low power consumption budgets to prolong battery lifetimes, operating under reduced supply voltages imposed by modern technology nodes and within the noisy environments of complex system-on-chip (SOC) designs, all in addition to consuming as little silicon area as possible. The ability of the PLL to achieve the above is thus key to its continual progress in enabling wireless technology achieve increasingly powerful products which increasingly benet our daily lives. This thesis furthers the development of PLLs with respect to meeting the challenges imposed upon it by modern wireless technology, in two ways. Firstly, the thesis describes in detail the advantages to be gained through employing a fully dierential PLL. Specically, such PLLs are shown to achieve low noise performance, consume less silicon area than their conventional counterparts whilst consuming similar power, and being better suited to the low supply voltages imposed by continual technology downsizing. Secondly, the thesis proposes a sub-banded VCO architecture which, in addition to satisfying simultaneous requirements for large tuning ranges and low phase noise, achieves signicant reductions in PLL loop bandwidth variation. First and foremost, this improves on the stability of the PLL in addition to improving its dynamic locking behaviour whilst oering further improvements in overall noise performance. Since the proposed sub-banded architecture requires no additional power over a conventional sub-banded architecture, the solution thus remains attractive to the realm of low power design. These two developments combine to form a fully dierential PLL with reduced loop bandwidth variation. As such, the resulting PLL is well suited to meeting the increasingly demanding requirements imposed on it by today's (and tomorrows) wireless devices, and thus applicable to the continual development of wireless technology in benetting our daily lives

Space programs summary no. 37-61, volume 2 for the period 1 November - 31 December 1969. The deep space network

Research and developments in Deep Space Network progra

A 0.009-1.4-GHz Frequency Synthesizer with Suppressed Transients during VCO Band Switching

This brief presents a 0.009-1.4-GHz frequency synthesizer that is able to compensate for changes in the frequency tuning range, due to temperature variations, by switching voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) bands with minimal phase and frequency errors, without cycle slipping and without introducing any phase offsets. This is accomplished by a subthreshold capacitor bank switching circuit that causes the gradual addition of capacitance slowly enough to allow the loop to adjust the VCO control voltage to compensate. The additional circuitry uses less than 0.001 mm2 of silicon area and has minimal power consumption and minimal effects on the synthesizer's phase noise when fully switched. The synthesizer used to demonstrate this was implemented in a 0.18-μm SiGe BiCMOS process and achieves 365-fs integrated jitter at 1.05 GHz, with a total power consumption of 81 mW. Measurements of the capacitor bank switching circuit shows that it prevents cycle slipping during band switching and reduces the maximum frequency deviation by 99.3%

Picosecond excited state dynamics and excitation transport in solution and on surfaces

Time correlated single photon counting was employed in studies of excitation transport (ET) depolarization in 2- and 3-dimensional disordered systems. Reduced concentrations ranged up to ~3 in ethylene glycol solutions of DODCI (3-dimensional system) and ~5 in Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers containing octadecyl rhodamine B (2-dimensional system). Discrepancies between experiment and current ET theories (3-body Gochanour-Andersen-Fayer and/or 2-particle Huber) are small when artifacts due to reabsorption, dimerization (and concomitant trapping), solvent reorganization, and molecular reorientation are minimized or correctly modeled. Discrepancies persist in glycerol solutions of DODCI; they are attributed to orientational correlation between chromophores. The orientational correlation apparently arises from 3-dimensional liquid glycerol structure and extends to ~R[subscript]0;An optical shot noise limited detection scheme was developed which enabled pump-probe transient absorption studies of submonolayer rhodamine 640 adsorbed on fused silica and ZnO. The ground state recovery dynamics on silica are coverage dependent due to excitation trapping by dye aggregates. In contrast, the recovery on ZnO is significantly faster and essentially coverage independent. This provides strong evidence for efficient dye → semiconductor nonradiative excitation decay. ftn[superscript]1DOE Report IS-T-1291. This work was performed under contract No. W-7405-Eng-82 with the U.S. Department of Energy

A Low-Power, Reconfigurable, Pipelined ADC with Automatic Adaptation for Implantable Bioimpedance Applications

Biomedical monitoring systems that observe various physiological parameters or electrochemical reactions typically cannot expect signals with fixed amplitude or frequency as signal properties can vary greatly even among similar biosignals. Furthermore, advancements in biomedical research have resulted in more elaborate biosignal monitoring schemes which allow the continuous acquisition of important patient information. Conventional ADCs with a fixed resolution and sampling rate are not able to adapt to signals with a wide range of variation. As a result, reconfigurable analog-to-digital converters (ADC) have become increasingly more attractive for implantable biosensor systems. These converters are able to change their operable resolution, sampling rate, or both in order convert changing signals with increased power efficiency. Traditionally, biomedical sensing applications were limited to low frequencies. Therefore, much of the research on ADCs for biomedical applications focused on minimizing power consumption with smaller bias currents resulting in low sampling rates. However, recently bioimpedance monitoring has become more popular because of its healthcare possibilities. Bioimpedance monitoring involves injecting an AC current into a biosample and measuring the corresponding voltage drop. The frequency of the injected current greatly affects the amplitude and phase of the voltage drop as biological tissue is comprised of resistive and capacitive elements. For this reason, a full spectrum of measurements from 100 Hz to 10-100 MHz is required to gain a full understanding of the impedance. For this type of implantable biomedical application, the typical low power, low sampling rate analog-to-digital converter is insufficient. A different optimization of power and performance must be achieved. Since SAR ADC power consumption scales heavily with sampling rate, the converters that sample fast enough to be attractive for bioimpedance monitoring do not have a figure-of-merit that is comparable to the slower converters. Therefore, an auto-adapting, reconfigurable pipelined analog-to-digital converter is proposed. The converter can operate with either 8 or 10 bits of resolution and with a sampling rate of 0.1 or 20 MS/s. Additionally, the resolution and sampling rate are automatically determined by the converter itself based on the input signal. This way, power efficiency is increased for input signals of varying frequency and amplitude

The Deep Space Network, volume 3 Progress report, Mar. - Apr. 1971

Deep Space Network telecommunication and ground support equipment for planetary and interplanetary flight project

Space programs summary no. 37-61, volume 3 for the period 1 December 1969 - 31 January 1970. Supporting research and advanced development

Planetary atmospheres, space communications, and spacecraft power, control, antennas, materials, and propulsion system