583 research outputs found
Digitally Interfaced Analog Correlation Filter System for Object Tracking Applications
Advanced correlation filters have been employed in a wide variety of image processing and pattern recognition applications such as automatic target recognition and biometric recognition. Among those, object recognition and tracking have received more attention recently due to their wide range of applications such as autonomous cars, automated surveillance, human-computer interaction, and vehicle navigation.Although digital signal processing has long been used to realize such computational systems, they consume extensive silicon area and power. In fact, computational tasks that require low to moderate signal-to-noise ratios are more efficiently realized in analog than digital. However, analog signal processing has its own caveats. Mainly, noise and offset accumulation which degrades the accuracy, and lack of a scalable and standard input/output interface capable of managing a large number of analog data.Two digitally-interfaced analog correlation filter systems are proposed. While digital interfacing provided a standard and scalable way of communication with pre- and post-processing blocks without undermining the energy efficiency of the system, the multiply-accumulate operations were performed in analog. Moreover, non-volatile floating-gate memories are utilized as storage for coefficients. The proposed systems incorporate techniques to reduce the effects of analog circuit imperfections.The first system implements a 24x57 Gilbert-multiplier-based correlation filter. The I/O interface is implemented with low-power D/A and A/D converters and a correlated double sampling technique is implemented to reduce offset and lowfrequency noise at the output of analog array. The prototype chip occupies an area of 3.23mm2 and demonstrates a 25.2pJ/MAC energy-efficiency at 11.3 kVec/s and 3.2% RMSE.The second system realizes a 24x41 PWM-based correlation filter. Benefiting from a time-domain approach to multiplication, this system eliminates the need for explicit D/A and A/D converters. Careful utilization of clock and available hardware resources in the digital I/O interface, along with application of power management techniques has significantly reduced the circuit complexity and energy consumption of the system. Additionally, programmable transconductance amplifiers are incorporated at the output of the analog array for offset and gain error calibration. The prototype system occupies an area of 0.98mm2 and is expected to achieve an outstanding energy-efficiency of 3.6pJ/MAC at 319kVec/s with 0.28% RMSE
High Performance Integrated Circuit Blocks for High-IF Wideband Receivers
Due to the demand for highâperformance radio frequency (RF) integrated circuit
design in the past years, a systemâonâchip (SoC) that enables integration of analog and
digital parts on the same die has become the trend of the microelectronics industry. As
a result, a major requirement of the next generation of wireless devices is to support
multiple standards in the same chipâset. This would enable a single device to support
multiple peripheral applications and services.
Based on the aforementioned, the traditional superheterodyne frontâend
architecture is not suitable for such applications as it would require a complete receiver
for each standard to be supported. A more attractive alternative is the highintermediate
frequency (IF) radio architecture. In this case the signal is digitalized at an
intermediate frequency such as 200MHz. As a consequence, the baseband operations,
such as downâconversion and channel filtering, become more power and area efficient
in the digital domain. Such architecture releases the specifications for most of the frontâend building blocks, but the linearity and dynamic range of the ADC become the
bottlenecks in this system. The requirements of large bandwidth, high frequency and
enough resolution make such ADC very difficult to realize. Many ADC architectures
were analyzed and ContinuousâTime Bandpass SigmaâDelta (CTâBPâÎŁÎ) architecture was
found to be the most suitable solution in the highâIF receiver architecture since they
combine oversampling and noise shaping to get fairly high resolution in a limited
bandwidth.
A major issue in continuousâtime networks is the lack of accuracy due to powervoltageâ
temperature (PVT) tolerances that lead to over 20% pole variations compared
to their discreteâtime counterparts. An optimally tuned BP ÎŁÎ ADC requires correcting
for center frequency deviations, excess loop delay, and DAC coefficients. Due to these
undesirable effects, a calibration algorithm is necessary to compensate for these
variations in order to achieve high SNR requirements as technology shrinks.
In this work, a novel linearization technique for a Wideband LowâNoise
Amplifier (LNA) targeted for a frequency range of 3â7GHz is presented. Postâlayout
simulations show NF of 6.3dB, peak S21 of 6.1dB, and peak IIP3 of 21.3dBm,
respectively. The power consumption of the LNA is 5.8mA from 2V.
Secondly, the design of a CMOS 6th order CT BPâÎŁÎ modulator running at 800
MHz for HighâIF conversion of 10MHz bandwidth signals at 200 MHz is presented. A
novel transconductance amplifier has been developed to achieve high linearity and high
dynamic range at high frequencies. A 2âbit quantizer with offset cancellation is alsopresented. The sixthâorder modulator is implemented using 0.18 um TSMC standard
analog CMOS technology. Postâlayout simulations in cadence demonstrate that the
modulator achieves a SNDR of 78 dB (~13 bit) performance over a 14MHz bandwidth.
The modulatorâs static power consumption is 107mW from a supply power of ± 0.9V.
Finally, a calibration technique for the optimization of the Noise Transfer
Function CT BP ÎŁÎ modulators is presented. The proposed technique employs two test
tones applied at the input of the quantizer to evaluate the noise transfer function of
the ADC, using the capabilities of the Digital Signal Processing (DSP) platform usually
available in mixedâmode systems. Once the ADC output bit stream is captured,
necessary information to generate the control signals to tune the ADC parameters for
best SignalâtoâQuantization Noise Ratio (SQNR) performance is extracted via Leastâ
Mean Squared (LMS) softwareâbased algorithm. Since the two tones are located
outside the band of interest, the proposed global calibration approach can be used
online with no significant effect on the inâband content
Systematic Comparison of HF CMOS Transconductors
Transconductors are commonly used as active elements in high-frequency (HF) filters, amplifiers, mixers, and oscillators. This paper reviews transconductor design by focusing on the V-I kernel that determines the key transconductor properties. Based on bandwidth considerations, simple V-I kernels with few or no internal nodes are preferred. In a systematic way, virtually all simple kernels published in literature are generated. This is done in two steps: 1) basic 3-terminal transconductors are covered and 2) then five different techniques to combine two of them in a composite V-I kernel. In order to compare transconductors in a fair way, a normalized signal-to-noise ratio (NSNR) is defined. The basic V-I kernels and the five classes of composite V-I kernels are then compared, leading to insight in the key mechanisms that affect NSNR. Symbolic equations are derived to estimate NSNR, while simulations with more advanced MOSFET models verify the results. The results show a strong tradeoff between NSNR and transconductance tuning range. Resistively generated MOSFETs render the best NSNR results and are robust for future technology developments
Low-Noise Micro-Power Amplifiers for Biosignal Acquisition
There are many different types of biopotential signals, such as action potentials (APs), local field potentials (LFPs), electromyography (EMG), electrocardiogram (ECG), electroencephalogram (EEG), etc. Nerve action potentials play an important role for the analysis of human cognition, such as perception, memory, language, emotions, and motor control. EMGs provide vital information about the patients which allow clinicians to diagnose and treat many neuromuscular diseases, which could result in muscle paralysis, motor problems, etc. EEGs is critical in diagnosing epilepsy, sleep disorders, as well as brain tumors.
Biopotential signals are very weak, which requires the biopotential amplifier to exhibit low input-referred noise. For example, EEGs have amplitudes from 1 ÎŒV [microvolt] to 100 ÎŒV [microvolt] with much of the energy in the sub-Hz [hertz] to 100 Hz [hertz] band. APs have amplitudes up to 500 ÎŒV [microvolt] with much of the energy in the 100 Hz [hertz] to 7 kHz [hertz] band. In wearable/implantable systems, the low-power operation of the biopotential amplifier is critical to avoid thermal damage to surrounding tissues, preserve long battery life, and enable wirelessly-delivered or harvested energy supply. For an ideal thermal-noise-limited amplifier, the amplifier power is inversely proportional to the input-referred noise of the amplifier. Therefore, there is a noise-power trade-off which must be well-balanced by the designers.
In this work I propose novel amplifier topologies, which are able to significantly improve the noise-power efficiency by increasing the effective transconductance at a given current. In order to reject the DC offsets generated at the tissue-electrode interface, energy-efficient techniques are employed to create a low-frequency high-pass cutoff. The noise contribution of the high-pass cutoff circuitry is minimized by using power-efficient configurations, and optimizing the biasing and dimension of the devices. Sufficient common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) and power supply rejection ratio (PSRR) are achieved to suppress common-mode interferences and power supply noises. Our design are fabricated in standard CMOS processes. The amplifiersâ performance are measured on the bench, and also demonstrated with biopotential recordings
Unconventional Circuit Elements for Ladder Filter Design
KmitoÄtovĂ© filtry jsou lineĂĄrnĂ elektrickĂ© obvody, kterĂ© jsou vyuĆŸĂvĂĄny v rĆŻznĂœch oblastech elektroniky. SouÄasnÄ tvoĆĂ zĂĄkladnĂ stavebnĂ bloky pro analogovĂ© zpracovĂĄnĂ signĂĄlĆŻ. V poslednĂ dekĂĄdÄ bylo zavedeno mnoĆŸstvĂ aktivnĂch stavebnĂch blokĆŻ pro analogovĂ© zpracovĂĄnĂ signĂĄlĆŻ. StĂĄle vĆĄak existuje potĆeba vĂœvoje novĂœch aktivnĂch souÄĂĄstek, kterĂ© by poskytovaly novĂ© moĆŸnosti a lepĆĄĂ parametry. V prĂĄci jsou diskutovĂĄny rĆŻznĂ© aspekty obvodĆŻ pracujĂcĂch v napÄĆ„ovĂ©m, proudovĂ©m a smĂĆĄnĂ©m mĂłdu. PrĂĄce reaguje na dneĆĄnĂ potĆebu nĂzkovĂœkonovĂœch a nĂzkonapÄĆ„ovĂœch aplikacĂ pro pĆenosnĂ© pĆĂstroje a mobilnĂ komunikaÄnĂ systĂ©my a na problĂ©my jejich nĂĄvrhu. PotĆeba tÄchto vĂœkonnĂœch nĂzkonapÄĆ„ovĂœch zaĆĂzenĂ je vĂœzvou nĂĄvrhĂĄĆĆŻ k hledĂĄnĂ novĂœch obvodovĂœch topologiĂ a novĂœch nĂzkonapÄĆ„ovĂœch technik. V prĂĄci je popsĂĄna Ćada aktivnĂch prvkĆŻ, jako napĆĂklad operaÄnĂ transkonduktanÄnĂ zesilovaÄ (OTA), proudovĂœ konvejor II. generace (CCII) a CDTA (Current Differencing Transconductance Amplifier). DĂĄle jsou navrĆŸeny novĂ© prvky, jako jsou VDTA (Voltage Differencing Transconductance Amplifier) a VDVTA (Voltage Differencing Voltage Transconductance Amplifier). VĆĄechny tyto prvky byly rovnÄĆŸ implementovĂĄny pomocĂ "bulk-driven" techniky CMOS s cĂlem realizace nĂzkonapÄĆ„ovĂœch aplikacĂ. Tato prĂĄce je rovnÄĆŸ zamÄĆena na nĂĄhrady klasickĂœch induktorĆŻ syntetickĂœmi induktory v pasivnĂch LC pĆĂÄkovĂœch filtrech. Tyto nĂĄhrady pak mohou vĂ©st k syntĂ©ze aktivnĂch filtrĆŻ se zajĂmavĂœmi vlastnostmi.Frequency filters are linear electric circuits that are used in wide area of electronics. They are also the basic building blocks in analogue signal processing. In the last decade, a huge number of active building blocks for analogue signal processing was introduced. However, there is still the need to develop new active elements that offer new possibilities and better parameters. The current-, voltage-, or mixed-mode analog circuits and their various aspects are discussed in the thesis. This work reflects the trend of low-power (LP) low-voltage (LV) circuits for portable electronic and mobile communication systems and the problems of their design. The need for high-performance LV circuits encourages the analog designers to look for new circuit architectures and new LV techniques. This thesis presents various active elements such as Operational Transconductance Amplifier (OTA), Current Conveyor of Second Generation (CCII), and Current Differencing Transconductance Amplifier (CDTA), and introduces novel ones, such as Voltage Differencing Transconductance Amplifier (VDTA) and Voltage Differencing Voltage Transconductance Amplifier (VDVTA). All the above active elements were also designed in CMOS bulk-driven technology for LP LV applications. This thesis is also focused on replacement of conventional inductors by synthetic ones in passive LC ladder filters. These replacements can lead to the synthesis of active filters with interesting parameters.
A Novel Design of Low-Voltage VDIBA and Filter Application
In this study, a low-voltage low-power design of previously introduced analog signal processing element called as Voltage Differencing Inverting Buffered Amplifier (VDIBA) is presented. Level shifter current mirrors are used in the circuit design in order to accomplish the low-voltage low-power operation. The configuration operates only with ±0.4 V supply voltages and consumes power 569 ΌW at the bias current 50 ΌA. Also, low-voltage transconductor which has highly linear gm is executed with the use of bulk-driven quasi-floating gate (BD-QFG) and source degeneration techniques. The simulations of the introduced circuit have been performed with 0.18 Όm TSMC CMOS technology by SPICE. The theoretical approaches have been confirmed by the simulation results
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