• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.27 no.2
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• pp.93-98
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• 2018

In this paper, an energy-efficient 11.49-bit successive approximation register (SAR) capacitance-to-digital converter (CDC) for capacitive sensors with a figure of merit (FoM) of 31.6 pJ/conversion-step is presented. The CDC employs a SAR algorithm to obtain low power consumption and a simplified structure. The proposed circuit uses a capacitive sensing amplifier (CSA) and a dynamic latch comparator to achieve parasitic capacitance-insensitive operation. The CSA adopts a correlated double sampling (CDS) technique to reduce flicker (1/f) noise to achieve low-noise characteristics. The SAR algorithm is implemented in dual operating mode, using an 8-bit coarse programmable capacitor array in the capacitance-domain and an 8-bit R-2R digital-to-analog converter (DAC) in the charge-domain. The proposed CDC achieves a wide input capacitance range of 29.4 pF and a high resolution of 0.449 fF. The CDC is fabricated in a $0.18-{\mu}m$ 1P6M complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) process with an active area of 0.55 mm2. The total power consumption of the CDC is $86.4{\mu}W$ with a 1.8-V supply. The SAR CDC achieves a measured 11.49-bit resolution within a conversion time of 1.025 ms and an energy-efficiency FoM of 31.6 pJ/step.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.2317-2325
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• 2016

This paper presents a 10 bit successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with a reference driver. The proposed SAR ADC consists of a capacitive digital-to-analog converter (CDAC), a comparator, a SAR logic, and a reference driver which improves the immunity to the power supply noise. The reference driver generates the reference voltages of 0.45 V and 1.35 V for the SAR ADC with an input voltage range of ${\pm}0.9V$. The SAR ADC is implemented using a $0.18-{\mu}m$ CMOS technology with a 1.8-V supply. The proposed SAR ADC including the reference driver almost maintains an input voltage range to be ${\pm}0.9V$ although the variation of supply voltage is +/- 200 mV. It consumes 5.32 mW at a sampling rate of 10 MS/s. The measured ENOB, DNL, and INL of the ADC are 9.11 bit, +0.60/-0.74 LSB, and +0.69/-0.65 LSB, respectively.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.2
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• pp.514-517
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• 2018

In sensor systems, ADC (analog-to-digital converter) demands high resolution, low power consumption, and high signal bandwidth. Sigma-delta ADC achieves high resolution by high order structure and high over-sampling ratio, but it suffers from high power consumption and low signal bandwidth. SAR (successive-approximation-register) ADC achieves low power consumption, but there is a limitation to achieve high resolution due to process mismatch. This paper surveys architecture improvement of ADC to overcome these problems.

• Journal of Semiconductor Engineering
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.99-108
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• 2021

Successive Approximation Register (SAR) Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) seem to become the hottest ADC architecture during the past decade in implementing energy-efficient high performance ADCs. In this overview, we will review what kind of circuit techniques and architectural advances have contributed to place the SAR ADC architecture at its current position, beginning from a single SAR ADC and moving to various hybrid architectures. At the end of this overview, a recently reported compact and high-speed SAR-Flash ADC is introduced as one design example of SAR-based hybrid ADC architecture.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
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• 2008.06a
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• pp.461-462
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• 2008

An elaborate Simulink model for a nonredundant 10bit 20MSPS SAR ADC is proposed to verify its algorithm and to consider the real transistor-level issues of analog blocks. Some electrical trade-offs and power issues are considered.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.719-726
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• 2020

A threshold-voltage sensing circuit is proposed to compensate for pixel aging in active matrix organic light-emitting diodes. The proposed threshold-voltage sensing circuit consists of sample-hold (S/H) circuits and a single-ended successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with a resolution of 10 bits. To remove a scale down converter of each S/H circuit and a voltage gain amplifier with a signl-to-differentail converter, the middle reference voltage calibration and input range calibration for the single-ended SAR ADC are performed in the capacitor digital-to-analog converter and reference driver. The proposed threshold-voltage sensing circuit is designed by using a 180-nm CMOS process with a supply voltage of 1.8 V. The ENOB and power consimption of the single-ended SAR ADC are 9.425 bit and 2.83 mW, respectively.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.77-86
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• 2009

A wavelet Electrocardiogram(ECG) detector and its analog-to-digital converter(ADC) for low-power implantable cardiac pacemakers are presented in this paper. The proposed wavelet-based ECG detector consists of a wavelet decomposer with wavelet filter banks, a QRS complex detector of hypothesis testing with wavelet-demodulated ECG signals, and a noise detector with zero-crossing points. To achieve high-detection performance with low-power consumption, the multi-scaled product algorithm and soft-threshold algorithm are efficiently exploited. To further reduce the power dissipation, a low-power ADC, which is based on a Successive Approximation Register(SAR) architecture with an on/off-time controlled comparator and passive sample and hold, is also presented. Our algorithmic and architectural level approaches are implemented and fabricated in standard $0.35{\mu}m$ CMOS technology. The testchip shows a good detection accuracy of 99.32% and very low-power consumption of $19.02{\mu}W$ with 3-V supply voltage.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.50 no.11
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• pp.130-137
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• 2013

This paper presents analog front-end(AFE) circuits for bio-potential measurement. The proposed AFE is composed of IA(instrument amplifier), BPF(band-pass filter), VGA(variable gain amplifier) and SAR(successive approximation register) type ADC. The low gm(LGM) circuits with current division technique and Miller capacitance with high gain amplifier enable IA to implement on-chip AC-coupling without external passive components. Spilt capacitor array with capacitor division technique and asynchronous control make the 12-b ADC with low power consumption and small die area. The total current consumption of proposed AFE is 6.3uA at 1.8V.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.1012-1018
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• 2018

In this paper, CMOS SAR (Successive Approximation Register) A/D converter with 1.8V supply voltage is designed for IoT sensor processing. This paper proposes design of a 12-bit SAR A/D converter with two A / D converters in parallel to improve the sampling rate. A/D converter1 of the two A/D converters determines all the 12-bit bits, and another A/D converter2 uses the upper six bits of the other A/D converters to minimize power consumption and switching energy. Since the second A/D converter2 does not determine the upper 6 bits, the control circuits and SAR Logic are not needed and the area is minimized. In addition, the switching energy increases as the large capacitor capacity and the large voltage change in the C-DAC, and the second A/D converter does not determine the upper 6 bits, thereby reducing the switching energy. It is also possible to reduce the process variation in the C-DAC by proposed structure by the split capacitor capacity in the C-DAC equals the unit capacitor capacity. The proposed SAR A/D converter was designed using 0.18um CMOS process, and the supply voltage of 1.8V, the conversion speed of 10MS/s, and the Effective Number of Bit (ENOB) of 10.2 bits were measured. The area of core block is $600{\times}900um^2$, the total power consumption is $79.58{\mu}W$, and the FOM (Figure of Merit) is 6.716fJ / step.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
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• 2014.10a
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• pp.293-294
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• 2014

본 논문에서는 MOS 커패시터를 이용하여 12비트 1MSps 연속 근사화 레지스터 아날로그-디지털 변환기(Successive Approximation Register Analog-to-Digital Converter, SAR ADC)를 설계하였다. 설계된 아날로그-디지털 변환기는 매그나칩/SK하이닉스 $0.18{\mu}m$ 공정을 이용하였으며, Cadence Tool을 이용하여 시뮬레이션 및 레이아웃을 하였다. 시뮬레이션 결과 1.8V의 공급전압에서 전력 소모는 3.22mW였고, 유효 비트수는 11.5bit의 결과를 보였다.