• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.206-211
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• 2021

This paper proposes a Self-Reset Zero-Current Switching (ZCS) Circuit for thermoelectric energy harvesting. The Self-Reset ZCS circuit minimizes the operating current consumed by the voltage comparator, thereby reduces the power consumption of the energy harvesting circuit and improves the energy conversion efficiency by adding the self-reset function to the comparator. The Self-Reset ZCS circuit shows 3.4% of improvement in energy efficiency compared to the energy harvesting system with the conventional analog comparator ZCS for the output/input voltage ratio of 5.5 as a result of circuit simulation. The proposed circuit is useful for improving the performance of the wearable and bio-health-related harvesting circuits, where low-power and energy-efficient thermoelectric energy harvesting is needed.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.18 no.1
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• pp.115-122
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• 2014

In this paper, reliability is secured by sensing a post-program resistance of several tens of kilo ohms and restricting a read current flowing over an unblown eFuse within $100{\mu}A$ since RWL driver and BL pull-up load circuits using a regulated voltage of V2V ($=2V{\pm}10%$) are proposed to have a wide operating voltage range for eFuse OTP memory. Also, when a comparison of a cell array of 1 row ${\times}$ 32 columns with that of 4 rows ${\times}$ 8 columns is done, the layout size of 4 rows ${\times}$ 8 columns is smaller with $187.065{\mu}m{\times}94.525{\mu}m$ ($=0.01768mm^2$) than that of 1 row ${\times}$ 32 columns with $735.96{\mu}m{\times}61.605{\mu}m$ ($=0.04534mm^2$).

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.41 no.1
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• pp.53-60
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• 2004

This work describes a l0b 150 MSample/s CMOS pipelined A/D converter (ADC) based on advanced bootsuapping techniques for higher input bandwidth than a sampling rate. The proposed ADC adopts a typical multi-step pipelined architecture, employs the merged-capacitor switching technique which improves sampling rate and resolution reducing by $50\%$ the number of unit capacitors used in the multiplying digital-to-analog converter. On-chip current and voltage references for high-speed driving capability of R & C loads and on-chip decimator circuits for high-speed testability are implemented with on-chip decoupling capacitors. The proposed AU is fabricated in a 0.18 um 1P6M CMOS technology. The measured differential and integral nonlinearities are within $-0.56{\~}+0.69$ LSB and $-1.50{\~}+0.68$ LSB, respectively. The prototype ADC shows the signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR) of 52 dB at 150 MSample/s. The active chip area is 2.2 mm2 (= 1.4 mm ${\times}$ 1.6 mm) and the chip consumes 123 mW at 150 MSample/s.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.12 s.354
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• pp.65-73
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• 2006

This work presents a 14b 200KS/s $0.87mm^2$ 1.2mW 0.18um CMOS algorithmic A/D converter (ADC) for intelligent sensors control systems, battery-powered system applications simultaneously requiring high resolution, low power, and small area. The proposed algorithmic ADC not using a conventional sample-and-hold amplifier employs efficient switched-bias power-reduction techniques in analog circuits, a clock selective sampling-capacitor switching in the multiplying D/A converter, and ultra low-power on-chip current and voltage references to optimize sampling rate, resolution, power consumption, and chip area. The prototype ADC implemented in a 0.18um 1P6M CMOS process shows a measured DNL and INL of maximum 0.98LSB and 15.72LSB, respectively. The ADC demonstrates a maximum SNDR and SFDR of 54dB and 69dB, respectively, and a power consumption of 1.2mW at 200KS/s and 1.8V. The occupied active die area is $0.87mm^2$.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.459-466
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• 2011

Sleep diseases such as snoring and sleep apnea are physically, mentally harmful and results serious health problems. Snoring, known as breathing noise, is caused by coupled oscillation of the airway when the air passes through the trachea, and sleep apnea is caused by upper airway blockage. In order to solve these problems, many attempts have been made to detect the snoring during sleep and alleviate it. In this study, a new sensing system and analysis algorithm were developed in order to detect snoring sounds correctly under various sleep environments. Two polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) vibration sensors were used inside the pillow. The first PVDF sensor detects vibration transmitted through skull caused by snoring. And the second PVDF sensor detects both snoring sounds and ambient noises. The signals of two sensors were acquired through the designed analog circuits, and analyzed for snoring detection. Ten volunteers were participated for the experiment under five different conditions. Data from two PVDF sensors were processed by the established analysis algorithm, and snoring sounds were compared to noises. The results indicated that the energy of snoring is 70% bigger than that of ambient noise, which proves effectiveness of sensing system and analysis algorithm. Further study would be continued for more wide clinical studies with various environment noises. Based on this study, development of anti-snore pillow and sleep monitoring system for comfort sleep could be developed.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.7
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• pp.42-48
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• 2016

In this paper, a high-precision peak detector circuit that detects the output voltage information of a fly-back converter is proposed. The proposed design consists of basic analog elements with only one operational amplifier and three transistors. Because of its simple structure, the proposed circuit can minimize the delay time of the detection process, which has a strong impact on the precision of the regulation aspect of the fly-back converter. Furthermore, by using an amplifier and several transistors, the proposed detector can be fully integrated on-chip, instead of using discrete circuit elements, such as capacitors and diodes, as in conventional designs, which reduces the production cost of the fly-back converter module. In order to verify the performance of the proposed scheme, the peak detector was simulated and implemented by using a 0.35 m MagnaChip process. The gained results from the simulation with a sinusoidal stimulus signal show a very small detection error in the range of 0.3~3.1%, which is much lower than other reported detecting circuits. The measured results from the fabricated chip confirm the simulation results. As a result, the proposed peak detector is recommended for designs of high-performance fly-back converters in order to improve the poor regulation aspect seen in conventional designs.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.17 no.1 s.104
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• pp.67-73
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• 2006

This paper proposes a new predistortion linearizer with controlling intermodulation distortion(IMD) signals. This linearizer achieves independent control of third- and fifth-order intermodulation distortion products using amplitude modulation with even harmonic signals. A vector modulator that modulate fundamental signal with both second- and fourth-order harmonic components generated by harmonic generator circuits, generates the inverse characteristics third-and fifth-order intermodulation signals of power amplifier and controls amplitude and phase of them with each other modulation factors. As a results, this linearizer is suppressed IMD signals of power amplifier effectively. The test results show that the third IMD is cancelled more than 25 dB and the fifth order IMD is cancelled about 18 dB for CW two-tone signals. Also, it's improved the adjacent channel power ratio(ACPR) more than 7 dB for IS-95 CDMA signals.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.74-84
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• 2007

This paper presents a new dual-loop Delay Locked Loop(DLL) to expand the delay lock range of a conventional DLL. The proposed dual-loop DLL contains a Coarse_loop and a Fine_loop, and its operation utilizes one of the loops selected by comparing the initial time-difference among the reference clock and 2 internal clocks. The 2 internal clock signals are taken, respectively, at the midpoint and endpoint of a VCDL and thus are $180^{\circ}$ separated in phase. When the proposed DLL is out of the conventional lock range, the Coarse_loop is selected to push the DLL in the conventional lock range and then the Fine_loop is used to complete the locking process. Therefore, the proposed DLL is always stably locked in unless it is harmonically false-locked. Since the VCDL employed in the proposed DLL needs two control voltages to adjust the delay time, it uses TG-based inverters, instead of conventional, multi-stacked, current-starved inverters, to compose the delay line. The new VCDL provides a wider delay range than a conventional VCDL In overall, the proposed DLL demonstrates a more than 2 times wider lock range than a conventional DLL. The proposed DLL circuits have been designed, simulated and proved using 0.18um, 1.8V TSMC CMOS library and its operation frequency range is 100MHz${\sim}$1GHz. Finally, the maximum phase error of the DLL locked in at 1GHz is less than 11.2ps showing a high resolution and the simulated power consumption is 11.5mW.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.45 no.5
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• pp.1-11
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• 2008

This work proposes a 15b 50MS/s CMOS pipeline ADC based on digital code-error calibration. The proposed ADC adopts a four-stage pipeline architecture to minimize power consumption and die area and employs a digital calibration technique in the front-end stage MDAC without any modification of critical analog circuits. The front-end MDAC code errors due to device mismatch are measured by un-calibrated back-end three stages and stored in memory. During normal conversion, the stored code errors are recalled for code-error calibration in the digital domain. The signal insensitive 3-D fully symmetric layout technique in three MDACs is employed to achieve a high matching accuracy and to measure the mismatch error of the front-end stage more exactly. The prototype ADC in a 0.18um CMOS process demonstrates a measured DNL and INL within 0.78LSB and 3.28LSB. The ADC, with an active die area of $4.2mm^2$, shows a maximum SNDR and SFDR of 67.2dB and 79.5dB, respectively, and a power consumption of 225mW at 2.5V and 50MS/s.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.70-77
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• 2013

We suggest a low area and high efficiency switched-mode power supply (SMPS) with a pulse width modulation (PWM) generator based on a pseudo relaxation-oscillating technique. In the proposed circuit, the PWM duty ratio is determined by the voltage slope control of an internal capacitor according to amount of charging current in a PWM generator. Compared to conventional SMPSs, the proposed control method consists of a simple structure without the filter circuits needed for an analog-controlled SMPS or the digital compensator used by a digitally-controlled SMPS. The proposed circuit is able to operate at switching frequency of 1MHz~10MHz, as this frequency can be controlled from the selection of one of the internal capacitors in a PWM generator. The maximum current of the core circuit is 2.7 mA, and the total current of the entire circuit including output buffer driver is 15 mA at 10 MHz switching frequency. The proposed SMPS has a simulated maximum ripple voltage of 7mV. In this paper, to verify the operation of the proposed circuit, we performed simulation using Dongbu Hitek BCD $0.35{\mu}m$ technology and measured the proposed circuit.