A CMOS implementation of a spike event coding scheme for analog arrays

This paper presents a CMOS circuit implementation of a spike event coding/decoding scheme for transmission of analog signals in a programmable analog array. This scheme uses spikes for a time representation of analog signals. No spikes are transmitted using this scheme when signals are constant, leading to low power dissipation and traffic reduction in a shared channel. A proof-of-concept chip was designed in a 0.35 mum process and experimental results are presented

Two improved methods for testing ADC parametric faults by digital input signals

In this paper, two improved methods are presented extending our previous work. The first one improves the results by adjusting the voltage levels of the input pulse wave stimulus. Compared with the sine wave input stimulus, the four-level pulse wave can detect even more faulty cases with the offset faults. The second one improves the results by calculating the similarity of the output spectra between the golden devices and the DUTs. Compared with the previous method [10], it is less sensitive to the jitter and the change of the rise/fall time of the input pulse wave stimulus. In these two methods, a number of golden devices are tested at first to obtain the fault-free range. At last, a signature result is obtained from both methods. It can filter out the faulty devices in a quick way before testing the specific values of the conventional dynamic and static parameters

Offset-compensated comparator with full-input range in 150nm FDSOI CMOS-3d technology

This paper addresses an offset-compensated comparator with full-input range in the 150nm FDSOI CMOS- 3D technology from MIT- Lincoln Laboratory. The comparator discussed here makes part of a vision system. Its architecture is that of a self-biased inverter with dynamic offset correction. At simulation level, the comparator can reach a resolution of 0.1mV in an area of approximately 220μm2 with a time response of less than 40ns and a static power dissipation of 1.125μW

An Offset Cancelation Technique for Latch Type Sense Amplifiers

An offset compensation technique for a latch type sense amplifier is proposed in this paper. The proposed scheme is based on the recalibration of the charging/discharging current of the critical nodes which are affected by the device mismatches. The circuit has been designed in a 65 nm CMOS technology with 1.2 V core transistors. The auto-calibration procedure is fully digital. Simulation results are given verifying the operation for sampling a 5 Gb/s signal dissipating only 360 uW

A 10-Gb/s two-dimensional eye-opening monitor in 0.13-μm standard CMOS

An eye-opening monitor (EOM) architecture that can capture a two-dimensional (2-D) map of the eye diagram of a high-speed data signal has been developed. Two single-quadrant phase rotators and one digital-to-analog converter (DAC) are used to generate rectangular masks with variable sizes and aspect ratios. Each mask is overlapped with the received eye diagram and the number of signal transitions inside the mask is recorded as error. The combination of rectangular masks with the same error creates error contours that overall provide a 2-D map of the eye. The authors have implemented a prototype circuit in 0.13-μm standard CMOS technology that operates up to 12.5 Gb/s at 1.2-V supply. The EOM maps the input eye to a 2-D error diagram with up to 68-dB mask error dynamic range. The left and right halves of the eyes are monitored separately to capture horizontally asymmetric eyes. The chip consumes 330 mW and operates reliably with supply voltages as low as 1 V at 10 Gb/s. The authors also present a detailed analysis that verifies if the measurements are in good agreement with the expected results

Digital Background Self-Calibration Technique for Compensating Transition Offsets in Reference-less Flash ADCs

This Dissertation focusses on proving that background calibration using adaptive algorithms are low-cost, stable and effective methods for obtaining high accuracy in flash A/D converters. An integrated reference-less 3-bit flash ADC circuit has been successfully designed and taped out in UMC 180 nm CMOS technology in order to prove the efficiency of our proposed background calibration. References for ADC transitions have been virtually implemented built-in in the comparators dynamic-latch topology by a controlled mismatch added to each comparator input front-end. An external very simple DAC block (calibration bank) allows control the quantity of mismatch added in each comparator front-end and, therefore, compensate the offset of its effective transition with respect to the nominal value. In order to assist to the estimation of the offset of the prototype comparators, an auxiliary A/D converter with higher resolution and lower conversion speed than the flash ADC is used: a 6-bit capacitive-DAC SAR type. Special care in synchronization of analogue sampling instant in both ADCs has been taken into account. In this thesis, a criterion to identify the optimum parameters of the flash ADC design with adaptive background calibration has been set. With this criterion, the best choice for dynamic latch architecture, calibration bank resolution and flash ADC resolution are selected. The performance of the calibration algorithm have been tested, providing great programmability to the digital processor that implements the algorithm, allowing to choose the algorithm limits, accuracy and quantization errors in the arithmetic. Further, systematic controlled offset can be forced in the comparators of the flash ADC in order to have a more exhaustive test of calibration

High-speed Low-voltage CMOS Flash Analog-to-Digital Converter for Wideband Communication System-on-a-Chip

With higher-level integration driven by increasingly complex digital systems and downscaling CMOS processes available, system-on-a-chip (SoC) is an emerging technology of low power, high cost effectiveness and high reliability and is exceedingly attractive for applications in high-speed data conversion wireless and wideband communication systems. This research presents a novel ADC comparator design methodology; the speed and performance of which is not restricted by the supply voltage reduction and device linearity deterioration in scaling-down CMOS processes. By developing a dynamic offset suppression technique and a circuit optimization method, the comparator can achieve a 3 dB frequency of 2 GHz in 130 nanometer (nm) CMOS process. Combining this new comparator design and a proposed pipelined thermometer-Gray- binary encoder designed by the DCVSPG logic, a high-speed, low-voltage clocked-digital- comparator (CDC) pipelined CMOS flash ADC architecture is proposed for wideband communication SoC. This architecture has advantages of small silicon area, low power, and low cost. Three CDC-based pipelined CMOS flash ADCs were implemented in 130 nm CMOS process and their experimental results are reported: 1. 4-b, 2.5-GSPS ADC: SFDR of 21.48-dB, SNDR of 15.99-dB, ENOB of 2.4-b, ERBW of 1-GHz, power of 7.9-mW, and area of 0.022-mm2. 2. 4-b, 4-GSPS ADC: SFDR of 25-dB, SNDR of 18.6-dB, ENOB of 2.8-b, ERBW of 2-GHz, power of 11-mW. 3. 6-b, 4-GSPS ADC: SFDR of 48-dB at a signal frequency of 11.72-MHz, SNDR of 34.43-dB, ENOB of 5.4-b, power of 28-mW. An application of the proposed CDC-based pipelined CMOS flash ADC is 1-GHz bandwidth, 2.5-GSPS digital receiver on a chip. To verify the performance of the receiver, a mixed-signal block-level simulation and verification flow was built in Cadence AMS integrated platform. The verification results of the digital receiver using a 4-b 2.5-GSPS CDC-based pipelined CMOS ADC, a 256-point, 12-point kernel function FFT and a frequency detection logic show that two tone signals up to 1125 MHz can be detected and discriminated. A notable contribution of this research is that the proposed ADC architecture and the comparator design with dynamic offset suppression and optimization are extremely suitable for future VDSM CMOS processes and make all-digital receiver SoC design practical