| 1. |
- Ahmed Aamir, Syed, et al.
(author)
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Frequency compensation of high-speed, low-voltage CMOS multistage amplifiers
- 2013
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In: IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS), 2013. - : IEEE conference proceedings. - 9781467357609 ; , s. 381-384
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents the frequency compensation of high-speed, low-voltage multistage amplifiers. Two frequency compensation techniques, the Nested Miller Compensation with Nulling Resistors (NMCNR) and Reversed Nested Indirect Compensation (RNIC), are discussed and employed on two multistage amplifier architectures. A four-stage pseudo-differential amplifier with CMFF and CMFB is designed in a 1.2 V, 65-nm CMOS process. With NMCNR, it achieves a phase margin (PM) of 59° with a DC gain of 75 dB and unity-gain frequency (fug) of 712 MHz. With RNIC, the same four-stage amplifier achieves a phase margin of 84°, DC gain of 76 dB and fug of 2 GHz. Further, a three-stage single-ended amplifier is designed in a 1.1-V, 40-nm CMOS process. The three-stage OTA with RNIC achieves PM of 81°, DC gain of 80 dB and fug of 770 MHz. The same OTA achieves PM of 59° with NMCNR, while maintaining a DC gain of 75 dB and fug of 262 MHz. Pole-splitting, to achieve increased stability, is illustrated for both compensation schemes. Simulations illustrate that the RNIC scheme achieves much higher PM and fug for lower values of compensation capacitance compared to NMCNR, despite the growing number of low voltage amplifier stages.
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| 2. |
- Chen, Kairang, et al.
(author)
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Design of a 12.8 ENOB, 1 kS/s pipelined SAR ADC in 0.35-μm CMOS
- 2016
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In: Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing. - : Springer. - 0925-1030 .- 1573-1979. ; 86:1, s. 87-98
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents a 15-bit, two-stage pipelined successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter (ADC) suitable for low-power, cost-effective sensor readout circuits. The use of aggressive gain reduction in the residue amplifier combined with a suitable capacitive array DAC topology in the second stage simplifies the design of the operational transconductance amplifier while eliminating excessive capacitive load and consequent power consumption. An elaborate power consumption analysis of the entire ADC was performed to determine the number of bits in each stage of the pipeline. Choice of a segmented capacitive array DAC and attenuation capacitor-based DAC for the first and second stages respectively enable significant reduction in power consumption and area. Fabricated in a low-cost 0.35-μm CMOS process, the prototype ADC achieves a peak SNDR of 78.9 dB corresponding to an effective number of bits (ENOB) of 12.8 bits at a sampling frequency of 1 kS/s and provides an FoM of 157.6 dB. Without any form of calibration, the ADC maintains an ENOB >12.1 bits upto the Nyquist bandwidth of 500 Hz while consuming 6.7 μW. Core area of the ADC is 0.679 mm2.
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| 3. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, et al.
(author)
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A 0.4 V, sub-nW, 8-bit 1 kS/s SAR ADC in 65 nm CMOS for Wireless Sensor Applications
- 2016
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In: IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems - II - Express Briefs. - : Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). - 1549-7747 .- 1558-3791. - 9781479998777 ; 63:8, s. 743-747
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This brief presents an 8-bit 1-kS/s successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC), which is targeted at distributed wireless sensor networks powered by energy harvesting. For such energy-constrained applications, it is imperative that the ADC employs ultralow supply voltages and minimizes power consumption. The 8-bit 1-kS/s ADC was designed and fabricated in 65-nm CMOS and uses a supply voltage of 0.4 V. In order to achieve sufficient linearity, a two-stage charge pump was implemented to boost the gate voltage of the sampling switches. A custom-designed unit capacitor of 1.9 fF was used to realize the capacitive digital-to-analog converters. The ADC achieves an effective number of bits of 7.81 bits while consuming 717 pW and attains a figure of merit of 3.19 fJ/conversion-step. The differential nonlinearity and the integral nonlinearity are 0.35 and 0.36 LSB, respectively. The core area occupied by the ADC is only 0.0126 mm2.
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| 4. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, et al.
(author)
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A 10-bit 50 MS/s SAR ADC in 65 nm CMOS with On-Chip Reference Voltage Buffer
- 2015
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In: Integration. - : Elsevier. - 0167-9260 .- 1872-7522. ; 50, s. 28-38
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents the design of a 10-bit, 50 MS/s successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with an onchip reference voltage buffer implemented in 65 nm CMOS process. The speed limitation on SAR ADCs with off-chip reference voltage and the necessity of a fast-settling reference voltage buffer are elaborated. Design details of a high-speed reference voltage buffer which ensures precise settling of the DAC output voltage in the presence of bondwire inductances are provided. The ADC uses bootstrapped switches for input sampling, a double-tail high-speed dynamic comparator and split binary-weighted capacitive array charge redistribution DACs. The split binary-weighted array DAC topology helps to achieve low area and less capacitive load and thus enhances power efficiency. Top-plate sampling is utilized in the DAC to reduce the number of switches. In post-layout simulation which includes the entire pad frame and associated parasitics, the ADC achieves an ENOB of 9.25 bits at a supply voltage of 1.2 V, typical process corner and sampling frequency of 50 MS/s for near-Nyquist input. Excluding the reference voltage buffer, the ADC consumes 697 μW and achieves an energy efficiency of 25 fJ/conversionstep while occupying a core area of 0.055 mm2.
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| 5. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, et al.
(author)
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A fully-differential OTA in 28 nm UTBB FDSOI CMOS for PGA applications
- 2015
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In: 2015 European Conference on Circuit Theory and Design (ECCTD). - : IEEE. - 9781479998777 ; , s. 13-16
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents a fully-differential operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) designed in a 28 nm ultra-thin box and body (UTBB) fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) CMOS process. An overview of the features of the 28 nm UTBB FDSOI process which are relevant for the design of analog/mixed-signal circuits is provided. The OTA which features continuous-time CMFB circuits will be employed in the programmable gain amplifier (PGA) for a 9-bit, 1 kS/s SAR ADC. The reverse body bias (RBB) feature of the FDSOI process is used to enhance the DC gain by 6 dB. The OTA achieves rail-to-rail output swing and provides DC gain = 70 dB, unity-gain frequency = 4.3 MHz and phase margin = 68ï¿œ while consuming 2.9 μW with a Vdd = 1 V. A high linearity > 12 bits without the use of degeneration resistors and a settling time of 5.8 μs (11-bit accuracy) are obtained under nominal operating conditions. The OTA maintains satisfactory performance over all process corners and a temperature range of [-20oC +85oC].
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| 6. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, et al.
(author)
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A Study on Switched-Capacitor Blocks for Reconfigurable ADCs
- 2011
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In: Electronics, Circuits and Systems (ICECS), 2011. - 9781457718458 ; , s. 649-652
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Pipelined analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) achieve low to moderate resolutions at high bandwidths while sigma-delta (ΣΔ) ADCs provide high resolution at moderate bandwidths. A switched-capacitor (SC) block which can function as an integrator or an MDAC can be used to implement a reconfigurable ADC (R-ADC) which supports both these types of architectures. Through the use of high level models this work attempts to derive the capacitance and critical opamp parameters such as DC gain and bandwidth of the SC blocks in a reconfigurable ADC. Scaling of capacitance afforded by the noise shaping property of ΣΔ loops as well as the inter-stage gain of pipelined ADCs is used to minimize the total capacitance. This work can be used as reference material to understand some of the design trade-offs in R-ADCs.sigma-delta ADCs
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| 7. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, et al.
(author)
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An Analog Receiver Front-End for Capacitive Body-Coupled Communication
- 2012
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In: NORCHIP, 2012. - : IEEE. - 9781467322225 - 9781467322218 ; , s. 1-4
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This paper presents an analog receiver front-end design (AFE) for capacitive body-coupled digital baseband receiver. The most important theoretical aspects of human body electrical model in the perspective of capacitive body-coupled communication (BCC) have also been discussed and the constraints imposed by gain and input-referred noise on the receiver front-end are derived from digital communication theory. Three different AFE topologies have been designed in ST 40-nm CMOS technology node which is selected to enable easy integration in today's system-on-chip environments. Simulation results show that the best AFE topology consisting of a multi-stage AC-coupled preamplifier followed by a Schmitt trigger achieves 57.6 dB gain with an input referred noise PSD of 4.4 nV/√Hz at 6.8 mW.
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| 8. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, et al.
(author)
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An Ultra-Low-Voltage OTA in 28 nm UTBB FDSOI CMOS Using Forward Body Bias
- 2015
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In: Proc. IEEE Nordic Circuits and Systems Conf. (NORCAS), Oslo, Norway, pp. 1-4, Oct. 2015. - : IEEE. - 9781467365765 ; , s. 1-4
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper presents an ultra-low-voltage, sub-μW fully differential operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) designed in 28 nm ultra-thin buried oxide (BOX) and body (UTBB) fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) CMOS process. In this CMOS process, the BOX isolates the substrate from the drain and source and hence enables a wide range of body bias voltages. Extensive use of forward body biasing has been utilized in this work to reduce the threshold voltage of the devices, boost the device transconductance (gm) and improve the linearity. Under nominal process and temperature conditions at a supply voltage of 0.4 V, the OTA achieves −64 dB of total harmonic distortion (THD) with 75% of the full scale output swing while consuming 785 nW. The two-stage OTA incorporates continuoustime common-mode feedback circuits (CMFB) and achieves DC gain = 72 dB, unity-gain frequency of 2.6 MHz and phase margin of 68o. Sufficient performance is maintained over process, supply voltage and temperature variations.
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| 9. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, 1981-
(author)
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Building Blocks for Low-Voltage Analog-to-Digital Interfaces
- 2014
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Licentiate thesis (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In today’s system-on-chip (SoC) implementations, power consumption is a key performance specification. The proliferation of mobile communication devices and distributed wireless sensor networks has necessitated the development of power-efficient analog, radio-frequency (RF), and digital integrated circuits. The rapid scaling of CMOS technology nodes presents opportunities and challenges. Benefits accrue in terms of integration density and higher switching speeds for the digital logic. However, the concomitant reduction in supply voltage and reduced gain of transistors pose obstacles to the design of highperformance analog and mixed-signal circuits such as analog front-ends (AFEs) and data converters.To achieve high DC gain, multistage amplifiers are becoming necessary in AFEs and analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) implemented in the latest CMOS process nodes. This thesis includes the design of multistage amplifiers in 40 nm and 65 nm CMOS processes. An AFE for capacitive body-coupled communication is presented with transistor schematic level results in 40 nm CMOS. The AFE consists of a cascade of amplifiers to boost the received signal followed by a Schmitt trigger which provides digital signal levels at the output. Low noise and reduced power consumption are the important performance criteria for the AFE. A two-stage, single-ended amplifier incorporating indirect compensation using split-length transistors has been designed. The compensation technique does not require the nulling resistor used in traditional Miller compensation. The AFE consisting of a cascade of three amplifiers achieves 57.6 dB DC gain with an input-referred noise power spectral density (PSD) of 4.4 nV/ while consuming 6.8 mW.Numerous compensation schemes have been proposed in the literature for multistage amplifiers. Most of these works investigate frequency compensation of amplifiers which drive large capacitive loads and require low unity-gain frequency. In this thesis, the frequency compensation schemes for high-speed, lowvoltage multistage CMOS amplifiers driving small capacitive loads have been investigated. Existing compensation schemes such as the nested Miller compensation with nulling resistor (NMCNR) and reversed nested indirect compensation (RNIC) have been applied to four-stage and three-stage amplifiers designed in 40 nm and 65 nm CMOS, respectively. The performance metrics used for comparing the different frequency compensation schemes are the unity gain frequency, phase margin (PM), and total amount of compensation capacitance used. From transistor schematic simulation results, it is concluded that RNIC is more efficient than NMCNR.Successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) are becoming increasingly popular in a wide range of applications due to their high power efficiency, design simplicity and scaling-friendly architecture. Singlechannel SAR ADCs have reached high resolutions with sampling rates exceeding 50 MS/s. Time-interleaved SAR ADCs have pushed beyond 1 GS/s with medium resolution. The generation and buffering of reference voltages is often not the focus of published works. For high-speed SAR ADCs, due to the sequential nature of the successive approximation algorithm, a high-frequency clock for the SAR logic is needed. As the digital-to-analog converter (DAC) output voltage needs to settle to the desired accuracy within half clock cycle period of the system clock, a speed limitation occurs due to imprecise DAC settling. The situation is exacerbated by parasitic inductance of bondwires and printed circuit board (PCB) traces especially when the reference voltages are supplied off-chip. In this thesis, a power efficient reference voltage buffer with small area has been implemented in 180 nm CMOS for a 10-bit 1 MS/s SAR ADC which is intended to be used in a fingerprint sensor. Since the reference voltage buffer is part of an industrial SoC, critical performance specifications such as fast settling, high power supply rejection ratio (PSRR), and low noise have to be satisfied under mismatch conditions and over the entire range of process, supply voltage and temperature (PVT) corners. A single-ended, current-mirror amplifier with cascodes has been designed to buffer the reference voltage. Performance of the buffer has been verified by exhaustive simulations on the post-layout extracted netlist.Finally, we describe the design of a 10-bit 50 MS/s SAR ADC in 65 nmCMOS with a high-speed, on-chip reference voltage buffer. In a SAR ADC, the capacitive array DAC is the most area-intensive block. Also a binary-weighted capacitor array has a large spread of capacitor values for moderate and high resolutions which leads to increased power consumption. In this work, a split binary-weighted capacitive array DAC has been used to reduce area and power consumption. The proposed ADC has bootstrapped sampling switches which meet 10-bit linearity over all PVT corners and a two-stage dynamic comparator. The important design parameters of the reference voltage buffer are derived in the context of the SAR ADC. The impact of the buffer on the ADC performance is illustrated by simulations using bondwire parasitics. In post-layout simulation which includes the entire pad frame and associated parasitics, the ADC achieves an ENOB of 9.25 bits at a supply voltage of 1.2 V, typical process corner, and sampling frequency of 50 MS/s for near-Nyquist input. Excluding the reference voltage buffer, the ADC achieves an energy efficiency of 25 fJ/conversion-step while occupying a core area of 0.055 mm2.
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| 10. |
- Harikumar, Prakash, et al.
(author)
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Design of a Reference Voltage Buffer for a 10-bit 1-MS/s SAR ADC
- 2014
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In: Mixed Design of Integrated Circuits and Systems (MIXDES), 2014 Proceedings of the 21st International Conference. - Poland. - 9788363578046 ; , s. 185-188
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Conference paper (peer-reviewed)abstract
- The paper presents the design of a single-ended amplifier in 1.8~V, 180 nm CMOS process forbuffering the reference voltage in a 10-bit 1-MS/s successive-approximation register (SAR) ADC. The design addresses the comprehensive requirements on the buffersuch as settling time, PSRR, noise, stability, capacitive load variation and power-down features which would be required in a SAR ADC for embedded applications. The buffer is optimized for current consumption and area. Transistor schematic level simulation achieves worst-case settling time of 19.3~ns andcurrent consumption of 66~$\mu$A while occupying an area of (19.2~$\mu$m $\times$ 19.2~$\mu$m).
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