A 5-bit time to digital converter using time to voltage conversion and integrating techniques for agricultural products analysis by Raman spectroscopy

Time to digital converter(TDC)is a key block for time-gated single photon avalanche diode(SPAD)arrays for Raman spectroscopy that applicable in the agricultural products and food analysis.In this paper a new dual slope time to digital converter that employs the time to voltage conversion and integrating techniques for digitizing the time interval input signals is presented.The reference clock frequency of the TDC is 100 MHz and the input range is theoretically unlimited.The proposed converter features high accuracy,very small average error and high linear range.Also this converter has some advantages such as low circuit complexity,low power consumption and low sensitive to the temperature,power supply and process changes(PVT)compared with the time to digital converters that used preceding conversion techniques.The proposed converter uses an indirect time to digital conversion method.Therefore,our converter has the appropriate linearity without extra elements.In order to evaluate the proposed idea,an integrating time to digital converter is designed in 0.18 lm CMOS technology and was simulated by Hspice.Comparison of the theoretical and simulation results confirms the proposed TDC operation;therefore,the proposed converter is very convenient for applications which have average speed and low variations in the signal amplitude such as biomedical signals.

An optimized analog to digital converter for WLAN analog front end

A 10 bit 80 MSPS analog to digital converter optimized for WLAN analog front end is presented. In contrast to conventional 1.5 bit pipeline architecture, four optimized multiit multiply digital to analog converter stages are implemented. An on-chip low-noise reference buffer is proposed for SoC integration purposes, and a wide-bandwidth wide swing sample and hold amplifier is also presented for achieving a good dynamic range. The converter was fabricated in 0.18 #m 1P6M CMOS technology, and the core area occupies approximately 0.85 mm2. Measured results show that with an 11 MHz input signal, it provides a 9.4 bit effective number of bits and a 72 dBc spurious frequency dynamic range when sampled at 80 MHz.

ADC border effect and suppression of quantization error in the digital dynamic measurement

The digital measurement and processing is an important direction in the measurement and control field. The quantization error widely existing in the digital processing is always the decisive factor that restricts the development and applications of the digital technology. In this paper, we find that the stability of the digital quantization system is obviously better than the quantization resolution. The application of a border effect in the digital quantization can greatly improve the accuracy of digital processing. Its effective precision has nothing to do with the number of quantization bits, which is only related to the stability of the quantization system. The high precision measurement results obtained in the low level quantization system with high sampling rate have an important application value for the progress in the digital measurement and processing field.

Solar Energy System with Digital Controller for Grid Connected Systems

The solar photovoltaic （PV） module output voltage changes according to the variation of light intensity and temperature. This paper presents the implementation of an automatic digital controller of a DC-DC boost converter without batteries for a solar cell module by using a peripheral interface controller, which forms a closed loop, to control the ON-OFF period of the switching pulse. The output of DC-DC converter is maintained by automatically increasing or decreasing the pulse width. To produce the pulse width modulation （PWM）, the microcontroller is programmed according to the required duty cycle for the power switch. The PWM ON period is increased with the decrease in the PV voltage and vice-versa. The input voltage to the inverter is maintained constantly and is converted into an AC signal by using the metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor （MOSFET） H-bridge operated in the sinusoidal pulse width modulation mode by using a PIC （peripheral interface controller） microcontroller. The generated AC signal can be connected to the AC grid or to the AC load. The simulated results by using Proteus 8 and hardware implemented results verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Integration and verification case of IP-core based system on chip design

In this paper, the design and verification process of an automobile-engine-fan control system on chip （SoC） are introduced. The SoC system, SHU-MV08, reuses four new intellectual property （IP） cores and the design flow is accomplished with 0.35 btm chartered CMOS technology. Some special functions of IP cores, the detailed integration scheme of four IP cores, and the verification method of the entire SoC are presented. To settle the verification problems brought by analog IP cores, NanoSim based chip-level mixed-signal verification method is introduced. The verification time is greatly reduced and the first tape-out achieves success which proves the validity of our design.

Data Acquisition System for Electron Energy Loss Coincident Spectrometers

A Data Acquisition System （DAQ） for electron energy loss coincident spectrometers （EELCS） has been developed. The system is composed of a Multiplex Time-Digital Converter （TDC） that measures the flying time of positive and negative ions and a one-dimension positionsensitive detector that records the energy loss of scattering electrons. The experimental data are buffered in a first-in-first-out（FIFO） memory module, then transferred from the FIFO memory to PC by the USB interface. The DAQ system can record the flying time of several ions in one collision, and allows of different data collection modes. The system has been demonstrated at the Electron Energy Loss Coincident Spectrometers at the Laboratory of Atomic and Molecular Physics, USTC. A detail description of the whole system is given and experimental results shown.

An Energy-Efficient 12b 2.56 MS/s SAR ADC Using Successive Scaling of Reference Voltages

This paper presents an energy efficient architecture for successive approximation register(SAR)analog to digital converter(ADC).SAR ADCs with a capacitor array structure have been widely used because of its simple architecture and relatively high speed.However,conventional SAR ADCs consume relatively high energy due to the large number of capacitors used in the capacitor array and their sizes scaled up along with the number of bits.The proposed architecture reduces the energy consumption as well as the capacitor size by employing a new array architecture that scales down the reference voltages instead of scaling up the capacitor sizes.The proposed 12-bit SAR ADC is implemented in Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor(CMOS)0.13 um library using Cadence Virtuoso design tool.Simulation results and mathematical model demonstrate the overall energy savings of up to 97.3%compared with conventional SAR ADC,67%compared with the SAR ADC with split capacitor,and 35%compared with the resistor and capacitor(R&C)Hybrid SAR ADC.The ADC achieves an effective number of bits(ENOB)of 11.27 bits and consumes 61.7 uW at sampling rate of 2.56 MS/s,offering an energy consumption of 9.8 fJ per conversion step.The proposed SAR ADC offers 95.5%reduction in chip core area compared to conventional architecture,while occupying an active area of 0.088 mm2.

A survey of high-speed high-resolution current steering DACs

Digital to analog converters(DAC)play an important role as a bridge connecting the analog world and the digital world.With the rapid development of wireless communication,wideband digital radar,and other emerging technologies,better performing high-speed high-resolution DACs are required.In those applications,signal bandwidth and high-frequency linearity often limited by data converters are the bottleneck of the system.This article reviews the state-of-the-art technologies of high-speed and high-resolution DACs reported in recent years.Comparisons are made between different architectures,circuit implementations and calibration techniques along with the figure of merit(FoM)results.

Study of word length selection for DDCs used in ultra-low symbol rate receivers

The relationship between the hardware requirement of digital down converters（DDCs）in ultra-low symbol rate receivers and the word length is studied.Through analyzing the impact of word length selection to the system performance,a modified scheme is presented to decline the resource consumption without too much degradation on the signal to noise ratio（SNR）.Theoretical analysis and numerical results demonstrate that compared to the traditional design,the proposed scheme could save dozens of memory resources.The scheme also includes some selectable parameters to achieve desired performance in various circumstances.Different from previous work in DDCs that concentrates mostly on the structure design,this paper considers special applications such as ultra-low symbol rate receivers.

A 12-bit 80 MS/s 2 mW SAR ADC with Deliberated Digital Calibration and Redundancy Schemes for Medical Imaging

In this article,we presented a 12-bit 80 MS/s low power successive approximation register(SAR)analog to digital converter(ADC)design.A simplified but effective digital calibration scheme was exploited to make the ADC achieve high resolution without sacrificing more silicon area and power efficiency.A modified redundancy technique was also adopted to guarantee the feasibility of the calibration and meantime ease the burden of the reference buffer circuit.The prototype SAR ADC can work up to a sampling rate of 80 MS/s with the performance of>10.5 bit equivalent number of bits(ENOB),<±1 least significant bit(LSB)differential nonlinearity(DNL)&integrated nonlinearity(INL),while only consuming less than 2 mA current from a 1.1 V power supply.The calculated figure of merit(FoM)is 17.4 fJ/conversion-step.This makes it a practical and competitive choice for the applications where high dynamic range and low power are simultaneously required,such as portable medical imaging.

A 14-bit 500-MS/s DAC with digital background calibration

Thelinearityofcurrent-steeringdigital-to-analogconverters（DACs）atlowsignalfrequenciesismainly limited by matching properties of current sources, so large-size current source arrays are widely used for better matching. This, however, results in large gradient errors and parasitic capacitance, which degrade the spurious free dynamic range（SFDR） for high-frequency signals. To overcome this problem, calibration is an effective method.In this paper, a digital background calibration technique for current-steering DACs is presented and verified by a 14-bit DAC in a 0.13 m standard CMOS process. The measured differential nonlinearity（DNL） and integral nonlinearity（INL） are 0.4 LSB and 1.2 LSB, respectively. At 500-MS/s, the SFDR is 70 dB and 50.3 dB for signals of 5.4 MHz and 224 MHz, respectively. The core area is 0.69 mm2and the power consumption is 165 mW from a mixed power supply with 1.2 V and 3.3 V.

A programmable gain amplifier with digitally assisted DC offset calibration for a direct-conversion WLAN receiver

This paper presents a programmable gain amplifier（PGA） circuit with a digitally assisted DC offset cancellation（DCOC） scheme for a direct conversion WLAN receiver.Implemented in a standard 0.13-μm CMOS process,the PGA occupies 0.39 mm2 die area and dissipates 6.5 mW power from a 1.2 V power supply.By using a single loop single digital-to-analog converter（DAC） mixed signal DC offset cancellation topology,the minimum DCOC settling time achieved is as short as 1.6μs with the PGA gain ranging from -8 to 54 dB in a 2 dB step.The DCOC loop utilizes a segmented DAC structure to lower the design complexity without sacrificing accuracy and a digital control algorithm to dynamically set the DCOC loop to fast or normal response mode,making the PGA circuit in compliance with the targeted WLAN specifications.

Simulink Behavioral Modeling of a 10-bit Pipelined ADC

The increasing architecture complexity of data converters makes it necessary to use behavioral models to simulate their electrical performance and to determine their relevant data features. For this purpose, a specific data converter simulation environment has been developed which allows designers to perform time-domain behavioral simulations of pipelined analog to digital converters （ADCs）. All the necessary blocks of this specific simulation environment have been implemented using the popular Matlab simulink environment. The purpose of this paper is to present the behavioral models of these blocks taking into account most of the pipelined ADC non-idealities, such as sampling jitter, noise, and operational amplifier parameters （white noise, finite DC gain, finite bandwidth, slew rate, and saturation voltages）. Simulations, using a 10-bit pipelined ADC as a design example, show that in addition to the limits analysis and the electrical features extraction, designers can determine the specifications of the basic blocks in order to meet the given data converter requirements.

Current mode ADC design in a 0.5-μm CMOS process

This paper presents a pipelined current mode analog to digital converter（ADC） designed in a 0.5-μm CMOS process.Adopting the global and local bias scheme,the number of interconnect signal lines is reduced numerously,and the ADC exhibits the advantages of scalability and portability.Without using linear capacitance,this ADC can be implemented in a standard digital CMOS process;thus,it is suitable for applications in the system on one chip（SoC） design as an analogue IP.Simulations show that the proposed current mode ADC can operate in a wide supply range from 3 to 7 V and a wide quantization range from ±64 to ±256 μA.Adopting the histogram testing method,the ADC was tested in a 3.3 V supply voltage/±64 μA quantization range and a 5 V supply voltage/±256 μA quantization range,respectively.The results reveal that this ADC achieves a spurious free dynamic range of 61.46 dB,DNL/INL are-0.005 to ＋0.027 LSB/-0.1 to ＋0.2 LSB,respectively,under a 5 V supply voltage with a digital error correction technique.

A fast combination calibration of foreground and background for pipelined ADCs

This paper describes a fast digital calibration scheme for pipelined analog-to-digital converters（ADCs）. The proposed method corrects the nonlinearity caused by finite opamp gain and capacitor mismatch in multiplying digital-to-analog converters（MDACs）.The considered calibration technique takes the advantages of both foreground and background calibration schemes.In this combination calibration algorithm,a novel parallel background calibration with signal-shifted correlation is proposed,and its calibration cycle is very short.The details of this technique are described in the example of a 14-bit 100 Msample/s pipelined ADC.The high convergence speed of this background calibration is achieved by three means.First,a modified 1.5-bit stage is proposed in order to allow the injection of a large pseudo-random dithering without missing code.Second,before correlating the signal,it is shifted according to the input signal so that the correlation error converges quickly.Finally,the front pipeline stages are calibrated simultaneously rather than stage by stage to reduce the calibration tracking constants.Simulation results confirm that the combination calibration has a fast startup process and a short background calibration cycle of 2×2^（21） conversions.

A low power mixed signal DC offset calibration circuit for direct conversion receiver applications

A low power mixed signal DC offset calibration （DCOC） circuit for direct conversion receiver applica- tions is designed. The proposed DCOC circuit features low power consumption, fast settling time and a small die area by avoiding the trade-off between loop response time and the high pass frequency of the DCOC servo loop in conventional analog DCOC systems. By applying the proposed DC offset correction circuitry, the output residue DC offset voltages are reduced to less than 38 mV and the DCOC loop settling time is less than 100 μs. The DCOC chip is fabricated in a standard 0.13μm CMOS technology and drains only 196 μA from a 1.2-V power supply with its chip area of only 0.372 ×0.419 mm^2.

A low power 12-bit 1 Msps successive approximation register ADC with an improved switching procedure

As a key building block of data acquisition systems, power dissipation of the successive approximation register （SAR） ADC determines the total power consumption of the system. In this paper, a low power 12-bit 1 Msps SAR ADC with an improved switching procedure is presented. Power consumption and area occupation could be significantly reduced by using the proposed switching procedure. Compared to converters that use the conventional switching procedure, the average switching energy could be reduced by about 80% and the total capacitance could be reduced by 50%. A simplified digital control logic is utilized to reduce power dissipation and area occupation of the digital control circuits. Simulation results show that the power dissipated by the proposed digital control circuits could be reduced by about 50% compared to the power dissipated by conventional control circuits. The chip has been processed in a standard 0.35 μm CMOS technology and has a core die area of 1,12 mm2. A signal-to-noise- and-distortion-ratio of 64.2 dB has been measured with a 100 kHz signal input under a wide range variation of temperature from -55 to 150 ℃ The total power consumption of the prototype is only 0.72 mW with a 3.3 V supply voltage.

A single channel,6-bit 410-MS/s 3bits/stage asynchronous SAR ADC based on resistive DAC

This paper presents a single channel, low power 6-bit 410-MS/s asynchronous successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter （SAR ADC） for ultrawide bandwidth （UWB） communication, prototyped in a SMIC 65-nm process. Based on the 3 bits/stage structure, resistive DAC, and the modified asynchronous successive approximation register control logic, the proposed ADC attains a peak spurious-free dynamic range （SFDR） of 41.95 dB, and a signal-to-noise and distortion ratio （SNDR） of 28.52 dB for 370 MS/s. At the sampling rate of 410 MS/s, this design still performs well with a 40.71-dB SFDR and 30.02-dB SNDR. A four-input dynamic comparator is designed so as to decrease the power consumption. The measurement results indicate that this SAR ADC consumes 2.03 mW, corresponding to a figure of merit of 189.17 fJ/step at 410 MS/s.

A high SFDR 6-bit 20-MS/s SAR ADC based on time-domain comparator

This paper presents a 6-bit 20-MS/s high spurious-free dynamic range（SFDR） and low power successive approximation register analog to digital converter（SAR ADC） for the radio-frequency（RF） transceiver frontend, especially for wireless sensor network（WSN） applications.This ADC adopts the modified common-centroid symmetry layout and the successive approximation register reset circuit to improve the linearity and dynamic range. Prototyped in a 0.18-μm 1P6M CMOS technology,the ADC performs a peak SFDR of 55.32 dB and effective number of bits（ENOB） of 5.1 bit for 10 MS/s.At the sample rate of 20 MS/s and the Nyquist input frequency,the 47.39-dB SFDR and 4.6-ENOB are achieved.The differential nonlinearity（DNL） is less than 0.83 LSB and the integral nonlinearity（INL） is less than 0.82 LSB.The experimental results indicate that this SAR ADC consumes a total of 522μW power and occupies 0.98 mm^2.