uCube: control platform for power electronics

This paper presents a versatile tool for development, control and testing of power electronics converters. In the last decade, many different expensive off-the-shelf tools for rapid prototyping and testing have been developed and commercialised by few market players. Recently, the increasing diffusion of low cost, Do It Yourself targeted development tools gained market shares previously controlled by conventional players. This trend has been driven by the fact that, despite their lower performances, many of these low cost systems are powerful enough to develop simple power electronics systems for learning and teaching purposes. This paper describes a control platform developed within the University of Nottingham, targeting at the market and application segment in between the expensive off-the-shelf control boards and the low cost emerging systems. The platform is based on the Microzed evaluation board, equipped with the Xilinx Zynq System-on-Chip. Its flexibility, features and performances will be addressed and examples of how they are being experimentally validated on different rigs will be provided

Digital Pulse Width Modulator Techniques For Dc - Dc Converters

Recent research activities focused on improving the steady-state as well as the dynamic behavior of DC-DC converters for proper system performance, by proposing different design methods and control approaches with growing tendency to using digital implementation over analog practices. Because of the rapid advancement in semiconductors and microprocessor industry, digital control grew in popularity among PWM converters and is taking over analog techniques due to availability of fast speed microprocessors, flexibility and immunity to noise and environmental variations. Furthermore, increased interest in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) makes it a convenient design platform for digitally controlled converters. The objective of this research is to propose new digital control schemes, aiming to improve the steady-state and transient responses of a high switching frequency FPGA-based digitally controlled DC-DC converters. The target is to achieve enhanced performance in terms of tight regulation with minimum power consumption and high efficiency at steady-state, as well as shorter settling time with optimal over- and undershoots during transients. The main task is to develop new and innovative digital PWM techniques in order to achieve: 1. Tight regulation at steady-state: by proposing high resolution DPWM architecture, based on Digital Clock Management (DCM) resources available on FPGA boards. The proposed architecture Window-Masked Segmented Digital Clock Manager-FPGA based Digital Pulse Width Modulator Technique, is designed to achieve high resolution operating at high switching frequencies with minimum power consumption. 2. Enhanced dynamic response: by applying a shift to the basic saw-tooth DPWM signal, in order to benefit from the best linearity and simplest architecture offered by the conventional counter-comparator DPWM. This proposed control scheme will help the compensator reach the steady-state value faster. Dynamically Shifted Ramp Digital Control Technique for Improved Transient Response in DC-DC Converters, is projected to enhance the transient response by dynamically controlling the ramp signal of the DPWM unit

QiCells: A Modular RFSoC-based Approach to Interface Superconducting Quantum Bits

Quantum computers will be a revolutionary extension of the heterogeneous computing world. They consist of many quantum bits (qubits) and require a careful design of the interface between the classical computer architecture and the quantum processor. For example, even single nanosecond variations of the interaction may have an influence on the quantum state. Designing a tailored interface electronics is therefore a major challenge, both in terms of signal integrity with respect to single channels, as well as the scaling of the signal count. We developed such an interface electronics, an RFSoC-based qubit control system called QiController. In this paper, we present the modular FPGA firmware design of our system. It features so-called digital unit cells, or QiCells. Each cell contains all the logic necessary to interact with a single superconducting qubit, including a custom-built RISC-V-based sequencer. Synchronization and data exchange between the cells is facilitated using a special star-point structure. Versatile routing and frequency-division multiplexing of generated signals between QiCells and converters are also supported. High-level programmability is provided using a custom Python-based description language and an associated compiler. We furthermore provide the resource utilization of our design and demonstrate its correct operation using an actual superconducting five qubit chip

A BIST solution for frequency domain characterization of analog circuits

This work presents an efficient implementation of a BIST solution for frequency characterization of analog systems. It allows a complete characterization in terms of magnitude and phase, including also harmonic distortion and offset measurements. Signal generation is performed using a modified filter, while response evaluation is based on 1storder ÓÄ modulation and very simple digital processing. The signal generator and the response analyzer have been implemented using the Switched-Capacitor (SC) technique in a standard 0.35ìm-3.3V CMOS technology. Both circuits have been separately validated, and an on-board prototype of the complete test system for frequency characterization has been implemented. Experimental results verify the functionality of the proposed approach, and a dynamic range of [email protected] (1MHz clock) has been demonstrated.Gobierno de España TEC2007-68072/MIC, TSI 020400- 2008-71Catrene European Project 2A105SR

A computational tool for microstrip planar filter design

Filters are very important part of any communication system. Naturally, RF and microwave systems belong to these systems. Microwave filters are needed in a wide range of applications including satellite communications and wireless communications as well as military applications. Planar filters among the other types of Microwave filters have the advantages of small size and portability. Moreover, planar filters are very appropriate for very high frequencies. With the rapid development of the technology in all aspects of our lives and to meet the aggressive project schedule deadlines and quality requirements which are needed by the engineers in the industrial field of planar filters design, the concept of developing software programs to develop planar filters emerges. Another important point, the fact that for both researchers and students it is not that easy to get a well understanding of the microwave concepts as well as its devices from textbooks alone. Through this thesis, an explanation of a tool known as (FILSoft) will be provided. The tool is developed based on Matlab-GUIs. Furthermore, the tool designs Microstrip line filters with experienced engineers’ design quality in a shorter time than by traditional design procedures. FILSoft is a user friendly design tool, the design procedures through this tool start from lumped elements filter up to Microstrip filter. The user just needs to insert the required filter specifications and the design’s material description then all the required results will be displayed including lumped element filter along with Microstrip filter structure and the filter frequency response. The tool is able to design both Butterworth and Chebyshev analytical functions along with the four types of filters; Low Pass Filter (LPF), High Pass Filter (HPF), Band Pass Filter (BPF), and Band Stop Filte

A modular RFSoC-based approach to interface superconducting quantum bits

Quantum computers will be a revolutionary extension of the heterogeneous computing world. They consist of many quantum bits (qubits) and require a careful design of the interface between the classical computer architecture and the quantum processor. Even single nanosecond variations of the interaction may have an influence on the quantum state. In this paper, we present the modular design of the FPGA firmware which is part of our qubit control electronics. It features so-called digital unit cells where each cell contains all the logic necessary to interact with a single superconducting qubit. The cell includes a custom-built RISC-V-based sequencer, as well as two signal generators and a signal recorder. Internal communication within the cell is handled using a modified Wishbone bus with custom 2-to-N interconnect and deterministic broadcast functionality. We furthermore provide the resource utilization of our design and demonstrate its correct operation using an actual superconducting five qubit chip

Versatile integrated circuit for the acquisition of biopotentials

Journal ArticleElectrically active cells in the body produce a wide variety of voltage signals that are useful for medical diagnosis and scientific investigation. These biopotentials span a wide range of amplitudes and frequencies. We have developed a versatile front-end integrated circuit that can be used to amplify many types of bioelectrical signals. The 0.6-μm CMOS chip contains 16 fully-differential amplifiers with gains of 46 dB, 2μVrms input-referred noise, and bandwidths programmable from 10Hz to 10kHz