Ren Junyan

A 3.1–4.8 GHz CMOS receiver for MB-OFDM UWB

An integrated fully differential ultra-wideband CMOS receiver for 3.1–4.8 GHz MB-OFDM systems is presented. A gain controllable low noise amplifier and a merged quadrature mixer are integrated as the RF front-end. Five order Gm-C type low pass filters and VGAs are also integrated for both I and Q IF paths in the receiver. The ESD protected chip is fabricated in a Jazz 0.18 μm RF CMOS process and achieves a maximum total voltage gain of 65 dB, an AGC range of 45 dB with about 6 dB/step, an averaged total noise figure of 6.4 to 8.8 dB over 3 bands and an in-band IIP3 of −5.1 dBm. The receiver occupies 2.3 mm2 and consumes 110 mA from a 1.8 V supply including test buffers and a digital module.

A novel low-voltage operational amplifier for low-power pipelined ADCs

A novel low-voltage two-stage operational amplifier employing class-AB architecture is presented. The structure utilizes level-shifters and current mirrors to create the class-AB behavior in the first and second stages. With this structure, the transconductances of the two stages are double compared with the normal configuration without class-AB behaviors with the same current consumption. Thus power can be saved and the operation frequency can be increased. The nested cascode miller compensation and symmetric common-mode feedback circuits are used for large unit-gain bandwidth, good phase margin and stability. Simulation results show that the sample-and-hold of the 12-bit 40-Ms/s pipelined ADC using the proposed amplifier consumes only 5.8 mW from 1.2 V power supply with signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio 89.5 dB, spurious-free dynamic range 95.7 dB and total harmonic distortion ?94.3 dB with Nyquist input signal frequency.

An 11-bit 22-MS/s 0.6 mW SAR ADC with parasitic capacitance compensation

This paper presents an 11-bit 22-MS/s 0.6-mW successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) using SMIC 65-nm low leakage (LL) CMOS technology with a 1.2 V supply voltage. To reduce the total capacitance and core area the split capacitor architecture is adopted. But in high resolution ADCs the parasitic capacitance in the LSB-side would decrease the linearity of the ADC and it is hard to calibrate. This paper proposes a parasitic capacitance compensation technique to cancel the effect with no calibration circuits. Moreover, dynamic circuits are used to minimize the switching power of the digital logic and also can reduce the latency time. The prototype chip realized an 11-bit SAR ADC fabricated in SMIC 65-nm CMOS technology with a core area of 300 × 200 μm2. It shows a sampling rate of 22 MS/s and low power dissipation of 0.6 mW at a 1.2 V supply voltage. At low input frequency the signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR) is 59.3 dB and the spurious-free dynamic range is 72.2 dB. The peak figure-of-merit is 36.4 fJ/conversion-step.

A 14-bit 200-MS/s time-interleaved ADC with sample-time error calibration

Sample-time error between channels degrades the resolution of time-interleaved analog-to-digital converters (TIADCs). A calibration method implemented in mixed circuits with low complexity and fast convergence is proposed in this paper. The algorithm for detecting sample-time error is based on correlation and widely applied to wide-sense stationary input signals. The detected sample-time error is corrected by a voltage-controlled sampling switch. The experimental result of a 2-channel 200-MS/s 14-bit TIADC shows that the signal-to-noise and distortion ratio improves by 19.1 dB, and the spurious-free dynamic range improves by 34.6 dB for a 70.12-MHz input after calibration. The calibration convergence time is about 20000 sampling intervals.

A 1.4-V 25-mW 600-MS/s 6-bit folding and interpolating ADC in 0.13-μm CMOS

A 600-MSample/s 6-bit folding and interpolating analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is presented. This ADC with single track-and-hold (T/H) circuits is based on cascaded folding amplifiers and input-connection-improved active interpolating amplifiers. The prototype ADC achieves 5.55 bits of the effective number of bits (ENOB) and 47.84 dB of the spurious free dynamic range (SFDR) at 10-MHz input and 4.3 bit of ENOB and 35.65 dB of SFDR at 200-MHz input with a 500 MS/s sampling rate; it achieves 5.48 bit of ENOB and 43.52 dB of SFDR at 1-MHz input and 4.66 bit of ENOB and 39.56 dB of SFDR at 30.1-MHz input with a 600-MS/s sampling rate. This ADC has a total power consumption of 25 mW from a 1.4 V supply voltage and occupies 0.17 mm2 in the 0.13-μm CMOS process.

A 12-bit 100 MS/s pipelined ADC with digital background calibration

This paper presents a 12-bit 100 MS/s CMOS pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with digital background calibration. A large magnitude calibration signal is injected into the multiplying digital-to-analog converter (MDAC) while the architecture of the MDAC remains unchanged. When sampled at 100 MS/s, it takes only 2.8 s to calibrate the 12-bit prototype ADC and achieves a peak spurious-free dynamic range of 85 dB and a peak signal-to-noise plus distortion ratio of 66 dB with 2 MHz input. Integral nonlinearity is improved from 1.9 to 0.6 least significant bits after calibration. The chip is fabricated in a 0.18 μm CMOS process, occupies an active area of 2.3 × 1.6 mm2, and consumes 205 mW at 1.8 V.

Low-power wide-locking-range injection-locked frequency divider for OFDM UWB systems

This paper describes a divide-by-two injection-locked frequency divider (ILFD) for frequency synthesizers as used in multiband orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) ultra-wideband (UWB) systems. By means of dual-injection technique and other conventional tuning techniques, such as DCCA and varactor tuning, the divider demonstrates a wide locking range while consuming much less power. The chip was fabricated in the Jazz 0.18 μm RF CMOS process. The measurement results show that the divider achieves a locking range of 4.85 GHz (6.23 to 11.08 GHz) at an input power of 8 dBm. The core circuit without the test buffer consumes only 3.7 mA from a 1.8 V power supply and has a die area of 0.38 × 0.28 mm2. The wide locking range combined with low power consumption makes the ILFD suitable for its application in UWB systems.

A 1-V 60-μW 85-dB dynamic range continuous-time third-order sigma-delta modulator

A 1-V third order one-bit continuous-time (CT) EA modulator is presented. Designed in the SMIC mixed-signal 0.13-μm CMOS process, the modulator utilizes active RC integrators to implement the loop filter. An efficient circuit design methodology for the CT ΣΔ modulator is proposed and verified. Low power dissipation is achieved through the use of two-stage class A/AB amplifiers. The presented modulator achieves 81.4-dB SNDR and 85-dB dynamic range in a 20-kHz bandwidth with an over sampling ratio of 128. The total power consumption of the modulator is only 60 μW from a 1-V power supply and the prototype occupies an active area of 0.12 mm2.

CMOS 1.5V bandgap voltage reference

A low power and high precision CMOS bandgap voltage reference circuit is presented. Prototype of the circuit is fabricated using the 0.18 mum CMOS process. The power supply is only 1.5 V. It fulfills the first order PTAT (proportion to absolute temperature) temperature curvature compensation with a good PSRR (power supply rejection ratio). The measured results of this circuit show that the PSRR is 47 dB. The output voltage varies from 1.114 V to 1.117 V which is constant within 0.269% over the temperature range of 0~80 degC. The power dissipation is 0.22 mW at 1.5 V and the active area is 0.057 mm2

A low-power low-voltage slew-rate enhancement circuit for two-stage operational amplifiers

A novel circuit is presented in order to enhance the slew rate of two-stage operational amplifiers. The enhancer utilizes the class-AB input stage to improve current efficiency, while it works on an open loop with regard to the enhanced amplifier so that it has no effect on the stability of the amplifier. During the slewing period, the enhancer detects input differential voltage of the amplifier, and produces external enhancement currents for the amplifier, driving load capacitors to charge/discharge faster. Simulation results show that, for a large input step, the enhancer reduces settling time by nearly 50%. When the circuit is employed in a sample-and-hold circuit, it greatly improves the spur-free dynamic range by 44.6 dB and the total harmonic distortion by 43.9 dB. The proposed circuit is very suitable to operate under a low voltage (1.2 V or below) with a standby current of 200 μA.