• Journal of Semiconductor Engineering
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.81-87
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• 2020

An instrumentation amplifier (IA) and an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) are essential circuit blocks for accurate and robust sensor readout systems. This paper introduces recent advances in radiation-hardening by design (RHBD) techniques applied for the sensor readout integrated circuits (IC), e.g., the three-op-amp IA and the successive-approximation register (SAR) ADC, operating against total ionizing dose (TID) and singe event effect (SEE) in harsh radiation environments. The radiation-hardened IA utilized TID monitoring and adaptive reference control to compensate for transistor parameter variations due to radiation effects. The radiation-hardened SAR ADC adopts delay-based double-feedback flip-flops to prevent soft errors which flips the data bits. Radiation-hardened IA and ADC were verified through compact model simulation, and fabricated CMOS chips were measured in radiation facilities to confirm their radiation tolerance.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.189-193
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• 2015

This paper provides the design techniques of a successive approximation register (SAR) type 12b analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for distributed maximum power point tracking (DMPPT) control in a photovoltaic system. Both a top-plate sampling technique and a $V_{CM}$-based switching technique are applied to the 12b capacitor digital-to-analog converter (CDAC). With these techniques, we can implement a 12b SAR ADC with a 10b capacitor array digital-to-analog converter (DAC). To enhance the accuracy of the ADC, a single-to-differential converted DAC is exploited with the dual sampling technique during top-plate sampling. Simulation results show that the proposed ADC can achieve a signal-to-noise plus distortion ratio (SNDR) of 70.8dB, a spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) of 83.3dB and an effective number of bits (ENOB) of 11.5b with bipolar CMOS LDMOD (BCDMOS) $0.35{\mu}m$ technology. Total power consumption is 115uW under a supply voltage of 3.3V at a sampling frequency of 1.25MHz. And the figure of merit (FoM) is 32.68fJ/conversion-step.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.183-188
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• 2015

A 10-bit 10MS/s low power consumption successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) using a straightforward capacitive digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is presented in this paper. In the proposed capacitive DAC, switching is always straightforward, and its value is half of the peak-to-peak voltage in each step. Also the most significant bit (MSB) is decided without any switching power consumption. The application of the straightforward switching causes lower power consumption in the structure. The input is sampled at the bottom plate of the capacitor digital-to-analog converter (CDAC) as it provides better linearity and a higher effective number of bits. The comparator applies adaptive power control, which reduces the overall power consumption. The differential prototype SAR ADC was implemented with $0.18{\mu}m$ complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology and achieves an effective number of bits (ENOB) of 9.49 at a sampling frequency of 10MS/s. The structure consumes 0.522mW from a 1.8V supply. Signal to noise-plus-distortion ratio (SNDR) and spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) are 59.5 dB and 67.1 dB and the figure of merit (FOM) is 95 fJ/conversion-step.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.504-510
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• 2015

This paper presents a power and area efficient SAR ADC for multi-channel near threshold-voltage (NTV) applications such as neural recording systems. This work proposes a split dual-capacitive-array (S-DCA) structure with shifted input range for ultra low-switching energy and architecture of multi-channel single-ended SAR ADC which employs only one comparator. In addition, the proposed ADC has the same amount of equivalent capacitance at two comparator inputs, which minimizes the kickback noise. Compared with conventional SAR ADC, this work reduces the total capacitance and switching energy by 84.8% and 91.3%, respectively.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.108-113
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• 2013

This paper describes a low power asynchronous successive approximation register (SAR) type 12b analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for biomedical applications in a 0.35 ${\mu}m$ CMOS technology. The digital-to-analog converter (DAC) uses a capacitive split-arrays consisting of 6-b main array, an attenuation capacitor C and a 5-b sub array for low power consumption and small die area. Moreover, splitting the MSB capacitor into sub-capacitors and an asynchronous SAR reduce power consumption. The measurement results show that the proposed ADC achieved the SNDR of 68.32 dB, the SFDR of 79 dB, and the ENOB (effective number of bits) of 11.05 bits. The measured INL and DNL were 1.9LSB and 1.5LSB, respectively. The power consumption including all the digital circuits is 6.7 ${\mu}W$ at the sampling frequency of 100 KHz under 3.3 V supply voltage and the FoM (figure of merit) is 49 fJ/conversion-step.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.59 no.2
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• pp.355-358
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• 2010

As CMOS technology continues to scale down, signal processing is favorably done in the digital domain, which requires Analog-to-Digital (A/D) Converter to be integrated on-chip. This paper presents a design methodology of 12-bit 1-MS/s Rail-to-Rail fully differential SAR ADC using Deep N-well Switch based on binary search algorithm. Proposed A/D Converter has the following architecture and techniques. Firstly, chip size and power consumption is reduced due to split capacitor array architecture and charge recycling method. Secondly, fully differential architecture is used to reduce noise between the digital part and converters. Finally, to reduce the mismatch effect and noise error, the circuit is designed to be available for Rail-to-Rail input range using simple Deep N-well switch. The A/D Converter fabricated in a TSMC 0.18um 1P6M CMOS technology and has a Signal-to-Noise-and-Distortion-Ratio(SNDR) of 69 dB and Free-Dynamic-Range (SFDR) of 73 dB. The occupied active area is $0.6mm^2$.

• Transactions on Semiconductor Engineering
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.13-18
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• 2024

This paper proposes a circuit utilizing auto zero technology to minimize offset and enhance accuracy in the reference generator and comparator. As evidence, a comparison between pre and post auto zero usage revealed a reduction of approximately 90% in standard deviation. The proposed circuit was implemented using a 55nm CMOS process, with an input frequency of 781.2 Hz. It achieves an Effective Number of Bits (ENOB) of 8.01 bits and a Signal-to-Noise Distortion Ratio (SNDR) of 49.98 dB.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.1058-1063
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• 2020

This paper proposes a 12-bit SAR A/D(Successive Approximation Register Analog-to-Digital) converter that operates at low power for bio-signal and sensor signal processing. The conventional SAR A/D converter utilized the reduction of the dynamic current, which resulted in reducing total power consumption. In order to solve the limitation of the sampling time due to charging/discharging of the capacitor for reducing dynamic current, the different sampling time on the C-DAC bit switch operation was applied to reduce the dynamic current. In addition, lowering the supply voltage of the digital block to 0.6V led to 70% reduction of the total power consumption of the proposed ADC. The proposed SAR A/D was implemented with CMOS 65nm process 1-poly 6-metal, operates with a supply voltage of 1.2V. The simulation results demonstrate that ENOB, DNL/INL, power consumption and FoM are 10.4 bits, ±0.5LSB./±1.2LSB, 31.2uW and 2.8fJ/step, respectively.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.40 no.4
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• pp.613-618
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• 2015

This paper proposed a low power CMOS Flash-SAR A/D converter which consists of a Flash A/D converter for 2 most significant bits and a SAR A/D converter with capacitor D/A converter for 8 least significant bits. Employment of a Flash A/D converter allows the proposed circuit to enhance the conversion speed. The SAR A/D converter with capacitor D/A converter provides a low power dissipation. The proposed A/D converter consumes $136{\mu}W$ with a power supply of 1V under a $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process and achieves 9.16 effective number of bits for sampling frequency up to 2MHz. Therefore it results in 120fJ/step of Figure of Merit (FoM).

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.54 no.2
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• pp.47-52
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• 2017

In this paper, CMOS SAR A/D converter 1.8V supply for the design of an A/D converter having an middle speed for the biological signal processing was designed. This paper proposes design of a 10-bit SAR Analog to Digital Converter improving linearity driven by MSB node of C-DAC array divided into 4 equal parts. It enhances linearity property, by retaining the analog input signal charging time at MSB node. Because MSB node samples analog input, it enhances resolution through getting initial input signal precisely. By using split capacitor on C-DAC array, it reduced chip size and power dissipation. The Proposed SAR A/D Converter is fabricated in 0.18um CMOS and measured 7.5 bits of ENOB at sampling frequency 4MS/s and power supply of 1.8V. It occupies a core area of $850{\times}650um^2$ and consumes 123.105uW. Therefore it results in 170.016fJ/step of FOM(Figure of Merit).