JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science

The Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers (대한전자공학회)
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A Single-Stage 37 dB-Linear Digitally-Controlled Variable Gain Amplifier for Ultrasound Medical Imaging

  • Cho, Seong-Eun (Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering from POSTECH) ;
  • Um, Ji-Yong (Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering from POSTECH) ;
  • Kim, Byungsub (Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering from POSTECH) ;
  • Sim, Jae-Yoon (Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering from POSTECH) ;
  • Park, Hong-June (Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering from POSTECH)
  • Received : 2014.05.12
  • Accepted : 2014.08.26
  • Published : 2014.10.30
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Abstract

This paper presents a variable gain amplifier (VGA) for an analog front-end (AFE) of ultrasound medical imaging. This VGA has a closed-loop topology and shows a 37-dB-linear characteristic with a single-stage amplifier. It consists of an op-amp, a non-binary-weighted capacitor array, and a gain-control block. This non-binary-weighted capacitor array reduces the required number of capacitors and the complexity of the gain-control block. The VGA has been fabricated in a 0.35-mm CMOS process. This work gives the largest gain range of 37 dB per stage, the largest P1 dB of 9.5 dBm at the 3.3-V among the recent VGA circuits available in the literature. The voltage gain is controlled in the range of [-10, 27] dB in a linear-in-dB scale with 16 steps by a 4-bit digital code. The VGA has a bandpass characteristic with a passband of [20 kHz, 8 MHz].

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References

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