• Journal of Semiconductor Engineering
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• v.2 no.1
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• pp.109-118
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• 2021

This review paper describes the overall operating principle of a discrete-time delta-sigma modulator (DTDSM) and a continuous-time delta-sigma modulator (CTDSM) using a switched-capacitor (SC). In addition, research that has solved the problems related to each delta-sigma modulator (DSM) is introduced, and the latest developments are explained. This paper describes the chopper-stabilization technique that mitigates flicker noise, which is crucial for the DSM. In the case of DTDSM, this paper addresses the problems that arise when using SC circuits and explains the importance of the operational transconductance amplifier performance of the first integrator of the DSM. In the case of CTDSM, research that has reduced power consumption, and addresses the problems of clock jitter and excess loop delay is described. The recent developments of the analog front end, which have become important due to the increasing use of wireless sensors, is also described. In addition, this paper presents the advantages and disadvantages of the three-opamp instrumentation amplifier (IA), current feedback IA (CFIA), resistive feedback IA, and capacitively coupled IA (CCIA) methods for implementing instrumentation amplifiers in AFEs.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.45 no.1
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• pp.150-162
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• 2023

The polar delta-sigma modulator (DSM) transmitter architecture exhibits good coding efficiency and can be used for software-defined radio applications. However, the necessity of high clock speed is one of the major drawbacks of using this transmitter architecture. This study proposes a low-complexity timeinterleaved architecture for the polar DSM transmitter baseband part to reduce the clock speed requirement of the polar DSM transmitter using an upsampling technique. Simulations show that using the proposed four-branch timeinterleaved polar DSM transmitter baseband part, the clock speed requirement of the transmitter is reduced by four times without degrading the signal-tonoise-and-distortion ratio.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.313-321
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• 2014

A low-power low-cost polar transmitter for EDGE is designed in $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS. A differential delta-sigma modulator (DSM) tunes a three-terminal voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) to perform RF phase modulation, where the VCO tuning curve is digitally pre-compensated for high linearity and the carrier frequency is calibrated by a dual-mode low-power frequency-locked loop (FLL). A digital intermediate-frequency (IF) pulse-width5 modulator (PWM) drives a complementary power-switch followed by an LC filter to achieve envelope modulation with high efficiency. The proposed transmitter with 9mW power dissipation relaxes the time alignment between the phase and envelope modulations, and achieves an error vector magnitude (EVM) of 4% and phase noise of -123dBc/Hz at 400kHz offset frequency.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.43 no.1 s.307
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• pp.39-44
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• 2006

Pattern noise in the Delta-Sigma modulator is a well Known phenomenon that intrigued many circuit designers. These noise appear as the modulator output falls into a cyclic mode of operation. This paper addresses the dependence of these tone signal upon the system topologies. Among the four well known single-stage DSM topologies, namely Cascade of Integrators with Feedback Form(CIFB), Cascade of Integrators with Feedforward Form(CIFF), Cascade of Resonators with Feedback Form(CRFB), and Cascade of Resonators with Feedforward Form(CRFF), resonator type DSMs turn out to be more susceptible to the pattern noise than the integrator type. Noise transfer functions of the investigated topologies are also presented.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.104-110
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• 2006

The advantage of the DSM which employ multi-bit quantizer is the increased SNR at the modulator's output. Typically 6 dB improvement is effected for every one additional bit. But multi-bit quantizer evidently requires multi-bit DAC in the feedback loop. The integral linearity error of the feedback DAC has direct impact upon the system performance and degraded SNR of the system. In order to mitigate the negative impact the DAC has on the system performance, many DEM(Dynamic Element Matching) schemes has been proposed. Among the proposed schemes, four schemes(DER,CLA,ILA,DWA) are explained and its performance has been compared. DWA(Data Weighted Averaging) method shows the best performance of the all.

• JSTS:Journal of Semiconductor Technology and Science
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.342-348
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• 2015

This paper presents a 1.9-GHz digital ${{\Delta}{\Sigma}}$ fractional-N PLL with a finite impulse response (FIR) filter embedded for noise suppression. The proposed digital implementation of FIR provides a simple method of increasing the number of taps without complicated calculation for gain matching. This work demonstrates 32 tap FIR filtering for the first time and successfully filtered the in-band phase noise generated from delta-sigma modulator (DSM). Design considerations are also addressed to find the optimum number of taps when the resolution of time-to-digital converter (TDC) is given. The PLL, fabricated in $0.11-{\mu}m$ CMOS, achieves a well-regulated in-band phase noise of less than -100 dBc/Hz for the entire range inside the bandwidth of 3 MHz. Compared with the conventional dual-modulus division, the proposed PLL shows an overall noise suppression of about 15dB both at in-band and out-of-band region.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2003.11b
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• pp.75-78
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• 2003

In this paper, a second-order 3-bit DSM using DWA(Data Weighted Averaging) algorithm is designed for bluetooth Zero-IF Receiver. The designed circuit has two integrators using a designed OTA, nonoverlapping two-phase clerk generator, 3-bit A/D converter, DWA algorithm and 3-bit D/A converter An ideal model of second-order lowpass DSM with a 3-bit quantizer was configured by using MATLAB, and each coefficients and design specification of each blocks were determined to have 10-bit resolution in 1MHz channel bandwidth. The designed second-order 3-blt lowpass DSM has maximum SNR of 74dB and power consumption is 50mW at 3.3V.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.28 no.12
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• pp.941-947
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• 2017

This paper reports a fractional-N phase-locked-loop(PLL) frequency synthesizer that is implemented in a $0.35-{\mu}m$ standard CMOS process and generates a quadrature signal for an FRS terminal. The synthesizer consists of a voltage-controlled oscillator(VCO), a charge pump(CP), loop filter(LF), a phase frequency detector(PFD), and a frequency divider. The VCO has been designed with an LC resonant circuit to provide better phase noise and power characteristics, and the CP is designed to be able to adjust the pumping current according to the PFD output. The frequency divider has been designed by a 16-divider pre-scaler and fractional-N divider based on the third delta-sigma modulator($3^{rd}$ DSM). The LF is a third-order RC filter. The measured results show that the proposed device has a dynamic frequency range of 460~510 MHz and -3.86 dBm radio-frequency output power. The phase noise of the output signal is -94.8 dBc/Hz, and the lock-in time is $300{\mu}s$.