Oscillation-based Test Method for Continuous-time OTA-C Filters

“This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder." “Copyright IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE.”Design for testability technique using oscillation-based test topology for KHN OTA-C filters is proposed. The oscillation-based test structure is a vectorless output test strategy easily extendable to built-in self-test. During test mode, the filter under test is converted into an oscillator by establishing the oscillation condition in its transfer function. The oscillator frequency can be measured using digital circuitry and deviations from the cut-off frequency indicate the faulty behaviour of the filter. The proposed method is suitable for both catastrophic and parametric fault diagnosis as well as effective in detecting single and multiple faults. The validity of the proposed method has been verified using comparison between faulty and fault-free simulation results of KHN OTA-C filter. Simulation results in 0.25mum CMOS technology show that the proposed oscillation-based test strategy has 84% fault coverage and with a minimum number of extra components, requires a negligible area overhead.Final Published versio

On the Design of Voltage-Controlled Sinusoidal Oscillators Using OTA's

A unified systematic approach to the design of voltage-controlled oscillators using only operational transconductance amplifiers (OTA's) and capacitors is discussed in this paper. Two classical oscillator models, i.e., quadrature and bandpass-based, are employed to generate several oscillator structures. They are very appropriate for silicon monolithic implementations. The resulting oscillation frequencies are proportional to the transconductance of the OTA and this makes the reported structures well-suited for building voltage controlled oscillators (VCO's). Amplitude stabilization circuits using both automatic gain control (AGC) mechanisms and limitation schemes are presented which are compatible with the transconductance amplifier capacitor oscillator (TACO). Experimental results from bipolar breadboard and CMOS IC prototypes are included showing good potential of OTA-based oscillators for high frequency VCO operation.Comisión Interministerial de Ciencia y Tecnología ME87-000

Metodologia Per la Caratterizzazione di amplificatori a basso rumore per UMTS

In questo lavoro si presenta una metodologia di progettazione elettronica a livello di sistema, affrontando il problema della caratterizzazione dello spazio di progetto dell' amplificatore a basso rumore costituente il primo stadio di un front end a conversione diretta per UMTS realizzato in tecnologia CMOS con lunghezza di canale .18u. La metodologia è sviluppata al fine di valutare in modo quantititativo le specifiche ottime di sistema per il front-end stesso e si basa sul concetto di Piattaforma Analogica, che prevede la costruzione di un modello di prestazioni per il blocco analogico basato su campionamento statistico di indici di prestazioni del blocco stesso, misurati tramite simulazione di dimensionamenti dei componenti attivi e passivi soddisfacenti un set di equazioni specifico della topologia circuitale. Gli indici di prestazioni vengono successivamente ulizzati per parametrizzare modelli comportamentali utilizzati nelle fasi di ottimizzazione a livello di sistema. Modelli comportamentali atti a rappresentare i sistemi RF sono stati pertanto studiati per ottimizzare la scelta delle metriche di prestazioni. L'ottimizzazione dei set di equazioni atti a selezionare le configurazione di interesse per il campionamento ha al tempo stesso richiesto l'approfondimento dei modelli di dispositivi attivi validi in tutte le regioni di funzionamento, e lo studio dettagliato della progettazione degli amplificatori a basso rumore basati su degenerazione induttiva. Inoltre, il problema della modellizzazione a livello di sistema degli effetti della comunicazione tra LNA e Mixer è stato affrontato proponendo e analizzando diverse soluzioni. Il lavoro ha permesso di condurre un'ottimizzazione del front-end UMTS, giungendo a specifiche ottime a livello di sistema per l'amplificatore stesso

Intensity Mapping of Lyman-alpha Emission During the Epoch of Reionization

We calculate the absolute intensity and anisotropies of the Lyman-alpha radiation field present during the epoch of reionization. We consider emission from both galaxies and the intergalactic medium (IGM) and take into account the main contributions to the production of Lyman-alpha photons: recombinations, collisions, continuum emission from galaxies and scattering of Lyman-n photons in the IGM. We find that the emission from individual galaxies dominates over the IGM with a total Lyman-alpha intensity (times frequency) of about (1.43-3.57)x10^{-8} erg s^{-1} cm^{-2} sr^{-1} at a redshift of 7. This intensity level is low so it is unlikely that the Lyman-\alpha background during reionization can be established by an experiment aiming at an absolute background light measurement. Instead we consider Lyman-\alpha intensity mapping with the aim of measuring the anisotropy power spectrum which has rms fluctuations at the level of 1 x 10^{-16} [erg s^[-1} cm^{-2} sr^{-1}]^2 at a few Mpc scales. These anisotropies could be measured with a spectrometer at near-IR wavelengths from 0.9 to 1.4 \mu m with fields in the order of 0.5 to 1 sq. degrees. We recommend that existing ground-based programs using narrow band filters also pursue intensity fluctuations to study statistics on the spatial distribution of faint Lyman-\alpha emitters. We also discuss the cross-correlation signal with 21 cm experiments that probe HI in the IGM during reionization. A dedicated sub-orbital or space-based Lyman-\alpha intensity mapping experiment could provide a viable complimentary approach to probe reionization, when compared to 21 cm experiments, and is likely within experimental reach.Comment: 18 pages, 17 figure

Dynamic mmWave Channel Emulation in a Cost-Effective MPAC with Dominant-Cluster Concept

Millimeter-Wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been considered as a key enabler for the fifth-generation (5G) communications. It is essential to design and test mmWave 5G devices under various realistic scenarios, since the radio propagation channels pose intrinsic limitations on the performance. This requires emulating realistic dynamic mmWave channels in a reproducible manner in laboratories, which is the goal of this paper. In this contribution, we firstly illustrate the dominant-cluster(s) concept, where the non-dominant clusters in the mmWave channels are pruned, for mmWave 5G devices applying massive MIMO beamforming. This demonstrates the importance and necessity to accurately emulate the mmWave channels at a cluster level rather than the composite-channel level. Thus, an over-the-air (OTA) emulation strategy for dynamic mmWave channels is proposed based on the concept of dominant-cluster(s) in a sectored multiprobe anechoic chamber (SMPAC). The key design parameters including the probe number and the angular spacing of probes are investigated through comprehensive simulations. A cost-effective switchcircuit is also designed for this purpose and validated in the simulation. Furthermore, a dynamic mmWave channel measured in an indoor scenario at 28-30 GHz is presented, where the proposed emulation strategy is also validated by reproducing the measured reality.Comment: Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Antennas and Propagatio

Analysis and Design Methodologies for Switched-Capacitor Filter Circuits in Advanced CMOS Technologies

Analog filters are an extremely important block in several electronic systems, such as RF transceivers, data acquisition channels, or sigma-delta modulators. They allow the suppression of unwanted frequencies bands in a signal, improving the system’s performance. These blocks are typically implemented using active RC filters, gm-C filters, or switched-capacitor (SC) filters. In modern deep-submicron CMOS technologies, the transistors intrinsic gain is small and has a large variability, making the design of moderate and high-gain amplifiers, used in the implementation of filter blocks, extremely difficult. To avoid this difficulty, in the case of SC filters, the opamp can be replaced with a voltage buffer or a low-gain amplifier (< 2), simplifying the amplifier’s design and making it easier to achieve higher bandwidths, for the same power. However, due to the loss of the virtual ground node, the circuit becomes sensitive to the effects of parasitic capacitances, which effect needs to be compensated during the design process. This thesis addresses the task of optimizing SC filters (mainly focused on implementations using low-gain amplifiers), helping designers with the complex task of designing high performance SC filters in advanced CMOS technologies. An efficient optimization methodology is introduced, based on hybrid cost functions (equation-based/simulation-based) and using genetic algorithms. The optimization software starts by using equations in the cost function to estimate the filter’s frequency response reducing computation time, when compared with the electrical simulation of the circuit’s impulse response. Using equations, the frequency response can be quickly computed (< 1 s), allowing the use of larger populations in the genetic algorithm (GA) to cover the entire design space. Once the specifications are met, the population size is reduced and the equation-based design is fine-tuned using the more computationally intensive, but more accurate, simulation-based cost function, allowing to accurately compensate the parasitic capacitances, which are harder to estimate using equations. With this hybrid approach, it is possible to obtain the final optimized design within a reasonable amount of computation time. Two methods are described for the estimation of the filter’s frequency response. The first method is hierarchical in nature where, in the first step, the frequency response is optimized using the circuit’s ideal transfer function. The following steps are used to optimize circuits, at transistor level, to replace the ideal blocks (amplifier and switches) used in the first step, while compensating the effects of the circuit’s parasitic capacitances in the ideal design. The second method uses a novel efficient numerical methodology to obtain the frequency response of SC filters, based on the circuit’s first-order differential equations. The methodology uses a non-hierarchical approach, where the non-ideal effects of the transistors (in the amplifier and in the switches) are taken into consideration, allowing the accurate computation of the frequency response, even in the case of incomplete settling in the SC branches. Several design and optimization examples are given to demonstrate the performance of the proposed methods. The prototypes of a second order programmable bandpass SC filter and a 50 Hz notch SC filter have been designed in UMC 130 nm CMOS technology and optimized using the proposed optimization software with a supply voltage of 0.9 V. The bandpass SC filter has a total power consumption of 249 uW. The filter’s central frequency can be tuned between 3.9 kHz and 7.1 kHz, the gain between -6.4 dB and 12.6 dB, and the quality factor between 0.9 and 6.9. Depending on the bit configuration, the circuit’s THD is between -54.7 dB and -61.7 dB. The 50 Hz notch SC filter has a total power consumption of 273 uW. The transient simulation of the circuit’s extracted view (C+CC) shows an attenuation of 52.3 dB in the 50 Hz interference and that the desired 5 kHz signal has a THD of -92.3 dB

Dynamic mmWave Channel Emulation in a Cost-Effective MPAC with Dominant-Cluster Concept

Millimeter-Wave (mmWave) massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) has been considered as a key enabler for the fifth-generation (5G) communications. It is essential to design and test mmWave 5G devices under various realisticscenarios since the radio propagation channels pose intrinsic limitations on the performance. This requires emulating realistic dynamic mmWave channels in a reproducible manner in laboratories, which is the goal of this paper. In this contribution, we first illustrate the dominant-cluster(s) concept, where thenon-dominant clusters in the mmWave channels are pruned, for mmWave 5G devices applying massive MIMO beamforming. This demonstrates the importance and necessity to accurately emulate the mmWave channels at a cluster level rather than the composite-channel level. Thus, an over-the-air (OTA) emulationstrategy for dynamic mmWave channels is proposed based on the concept of dominant-cluster(s) in a sectored multiprobe anechoic chamber (SMPAC). The key design parameters including the probe number and the angular spacing of probes are investigated through comprehensive simulations. A cost-effective switch circuit is also designed for this purpose and validated in the simulation. Furthermore, a dynamic mmWave channel measured in an indoor scenario at 28-30 GHz is presented, where the proposed emulation strategy is also validated by reproducing the measured reality