A CMOS four-quadrant analog current multiplier

A CMOS four-quadrant analog current multiplier is described. The circuit is based on the square-law characteristic of an MOS transistor and is insensitive to temperature and process variations. The circuit is insensitive to the body effect so it is not necessary to place transistors in individual wells. The multiplier has a large -3-dB bandwidth (50 MHz with 10-¿m transistors) and an approximately constant input impedance. The circuit was realized on a CMOS semicustom array. Measurements have shown that the nonlinearity is less than 1% at the maximum input current range and less than 0.2% when the input range is restricted to 50% of the maximu

A CMOS Wideband Linear Current Attenuator with Electronically Variable Gain

A CMOS highly linear current attenuator is described. The circuit is suited for both differential and single input currents. The current gain is electronically variable between -1 and +1 by means of two controlling currents. A simple additional circuit is described to obtain a gain that is linearly dependent on a single control current. The circuit can be used as a four-quadrant current multiplier. The current attenuator is realized in a standard 2.5 μm CMOS process using channel lengths of 5 μm. The measured nonlinearity is less than 1% over the entire input current range. Simulations indicate a feasible -3dB bandwidth of over 100 MHz

A high-Tc 4-bit periodic threshold analog-to-digital converter

Using ramp-type Josephson junctions a 4-bit periodic threshold ADC has been designed, fabricated and tested. Practical design constraints will be discussed in terms of noise immunity, flux flow, available technology, switching speed etc. In a period of four years we fabricated about 100 chips in order to bring the technology to an acceptable level and to test various designs and circuit layouts. This resulted in a basic comparator that is rather insensitive to the stray field generated by the analog input signal or variations in mask alignment during fabrication. The input signal is fed into the comparators using a resistive divider network. Full functionality at low frequencies has been demonstrate

A low-voltage Op Amp with rail-to-rail constant-gm input stage and a class AB rail-to-rail output stage

In this paper a low-voltage two-stage Op Amp is presented. The Op Amp features rail-to-rail operation and has an @put stage with a constant transconductance (%) over the entire common-mode input range. The input stage consists of an n- and a PMOS differential pair connected in parallel. The constant gm is accomplished by regulating the tail-currents with the aid of an MOS translinear (MTL) circuit. The resulting gn is constant within 5% The common-source output stage employs a feedback circuit which also contains an MTL circuit. This feedback circuit ensures class AB operation and prevents the transistors in the output stage from cutting off. The Op Amp will be realized in a semi custom CMOS process with minimum channel lengths of 1Opm. Simulations show that the minimum supply voltage is less than 2.5 V. A unity gain bandwidth of 550 kHz and a DC voltage gain larger than 80 dB are feasible. The input range exceeds the supply rails, whereas the output range reaches the rails within 130 mV

Low creep and hysteresis silicon load cell based on a force-to-liquid pressure transformation

Important problems in load cells are creep and hysteresis. Expensive high grade steels are used in order to reduce these effects. In this paper a silicon load cell design is presented which is based on a force-to-liquid-pressure transformation. The design is insensitive to hysteresis and creep, can be made at very low costs and is able to measure loads up to 1000 kg with an accuracy of 0.03 %. Analytical, numerical and experimental results on a macroscopic steel load cell are in very close agreement with each other

Velocity-independent thermal conductivity and volumetric heat capacity measurement of binary gas mixtures

In this paper, we present a single hot wire suspended over a V-groove cavity that is used to measure the thermal conductivity ($k$) and volumetric heat capacity ($\rho c_p$) for both pure gases and binary gas mixtures through DC and AC excitation, respectively. The working principle and measurement results are discussed