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A well-performed capacitive power transfer (CPT) system highly depends on its compensation to achieve load-independent (LI) output and zero phase angle (ZPA) operation. It is particularly meaningful to maintain these objectives under various misalignments. This paper is devoted to a general and comprehensive method to study and explore all the potential high-order compensations. The coupler parameter variation is evaluated under different types of misalignment, and misalignment-insensitive (MI) parameters are properly designed for MI resonance. A general and straightforward decomposition and synthesis method is then proposed to generate the high-order resonant tanks. With the help of inverse ABCD parameters, all tank candidates are further judged by their capability for LI output and ZPA operation. Finally, two example CPT systems are built to verify the LI output and ZPA operation under misalignment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an overview for low-power successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). It covers the operation principle, error analysis, and practical design issues. Furthermore, this paper provides a comprehensive survey of state-of-the-art low-power design techniques for every circuit block in the SAR ADC, including comparator, capacitive digital-to-analog converter (DAC), and SAR logic. The goal of this paper is to provide a useful overview to SAR ADC designers who want to improve the energy efficiency targeting low-to-medium speed applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a low-power and area efficient 10-bit SAR ADC with higher side-reset-and-set (HSRS) switching scheme and hybrid capacitive-MOS (CAP-MOS) DAC. The HSRS switching scheme consumes zero switching energy for the two most-significant bits and skips unnecessary switching without using any auxiliary circuit. It is further verified in this paper that the HSRS switching scheme shows lower nonlinearity compared with the conventional CDAC structure with the same unit capacitor size and matching condition. This additional advantage permits using DAC topologies with lower total capacitance under given linearity requirement. A hybrid CAP-MOS DAC is adopted to reduce the total capacitance of the DAC, which consumes lower static current and chip area than the conventional hybrid capacitive-resistive DAC under the same settling requirement. The prototype 10-bit SAR ADC is implemented in a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS technology, showing an SNDR/SFDR of 56.43 dB/71 dB at 90-kHz input, under a 0.6-V power supply, while consuming $1.01~\mu \text{W}$ at 200 kS/s for a figure of merit of 9.32 fJ/conv.-step. The ADC occupies only a small active area of 0.0675 mm2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the process scalability of pulse-mode CMOS circuits for analog 2-D convolution in computer vision systems. A simple, scalable architecture for an integrate and fire neuron is presented for implementing weighted addition of pulse-frequency modulated (PFM) signals. Sources of error are discussed and modeled in a detailed behavioral simulation and compared with equivalent transistor-level simulations. Next, the design of a 180-nm PFM chip with programmable weights is presented, and full image convolutions are demonstrated with the analog hardware. Preliminary chip measurements for a 45-nm implementation are also included to demonstrate process scalability. Design considerations for porting this architecture to nanometer processes, including FinFET technologies, are then discussed. This paper concludes with a simulation study on scaling down to 10 nm using a predictive technology model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a cycle by cycle Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) demodulator, able to demodulate a FSK signal with 1% frequency modulation index (MI), in a single cycle. Based on the proposed demodulation scheme, a high rate data transmission link can be established through a high-Q inductive coupling link, breaking the basic tradeoff between the power transfer efficiency (PTE) and data rate in single carrier wireless power and data transfer systems. Designed and simulated with $0.18\mu m$ CMOS process, the proposed FSK demodulator, detects successfully a 5Mbps data with a carrier frequency of 5MHz. A test chip is fabricated in 180nm CMOS technology. Measurement results shows that the demodulator is able to demodulate the cycle-by-cycle modulated FSK signals with low modulation index of 2.5%, with a BER of $1.24\times 10^{-5}$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a single-stage tri-path buck converter with reduced inductor current and self-balanced flying capacitor voltage. The proposed converter introduces capacitor paths to reduce the average inductor current and inductor current ripple, hence decreasing the conduction loss. Operating with two states per conversion cycle, it exhibits a relatively low voltage conversion ratio of ${D}$ /(1 $+\,\,2{D}$). Besides, it realizes a self-balanced flying capacitor voltage in the charge redistribution phase. Similar to the conventional buck converter, the proposed converter in continuous-current mode only has two complex poles. Therefore, we design a Type-III compensator to obtain a good transient response. Moreover, the circuit does not require extra supplies for gate drivers due to the reutilization of the flying capacitor voltages, eliminating additional circuit and power overheads. The proposed converter, validated in a 65-nm standard CMOS technology, regulates a 0.7 V – 1 V output voltage from a 3.3 V – 4 V input voltage, delivering a maximum output power of 270 mW. The peak efficiency is 84%, with a switching frequency up to 5 MHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eight-switch three-phase post-fault inverter (ESTPI) is widely used as the reconfigured topology of three-phase three-level neutral point clamped DC/AC inverter when open-circuit fault occurs. A key technical challenge for the ESTPI is the post-fault controller design. The existing post-fault control approaches for the ESTPI suffer from the difficulty in trading off the current tracking performance, neutral point voltage (NPV) balancing and common mode voltage (CMV) levels. To solve this problem, this paper proposes an improved predictive current control algorithm. The proposed algorithm contributes to achieve accurate output current tracking while greatly reducing the CMV with a balanced NPV. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new active building block namely, subtractor connected first-generation current conveyor (S-CCI) is introduced in this paper. A simulated floating inductor (SFI) and two new quadrature oscillators (QOs) employing only one S-CCI are introduced as application examples. The introduced SFI employs two resistors with a single matching requirement and a grounded capacitor. Each of the introduced QOs has one grounded resistor, one floating resistor, and two grounded capacitors without any matching problems. Non-ideality analyses are performed. Furthermore, a third-order filter application is given. A layout of the S-CCI in $0.18 \mu \text{m}$ technology occupying the area of about $71\,\,\mu \text{m}\,\,\times 44\,\,\mu \text{m}$ is given. Also, numerous post layout simulations based on the SPICE program are accomplished. Moreover, several experiments are realized to confirm the theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Inhomogeneous linear ordinary differential equations (ODEs) and systems of ODEs can be solved in a variety of ways. However, hardware circuits that can perform the efficient analog computation to solve them are rarely in the literature. To address such problems, this paper proposes a general method of using a memristor-capacitor (M-C) circuit to solve inhomogeneous linear ODEs and systems of ODEs of any order in initial value problems. The M-C circuit can match the coefficients of the equations sought by adjusting the memristor resistance value according to the coefficient formula proposed in the paper, which has higher programmability. Then, some ODEs and systems of ODEs are given in the paper as examples to evaluate the proposed method. According to the comparison results based on MATLAB software simulation and the simulation based on OrCAD software, the designed M-C circuit has an effective improvement in speed and the accuracy exceeds 99.95% in software simulation. Based on practical verification, this paper gives the actual M-C circuit experiment based on PCB. Moreover, the proposed method can be used to quickly solve the object motion state in the spring mass damping system in actual engineering, and the accuracy can reach 99.98%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present manuscript relies on the companion paper entitled “Memristor Circuits: Flux–Charge Analysis Method,” which has introduced a comprehensive analysis method to study the nonlinear dynamics of memristor circuits in the flux–charge $(\varphi ,q)$ –domain. The Flux–Charge Analysis Method is based on Kirchhoff Flux and Charge Laws and constitutive relations of circuit elements in terms of incremental fluxes and incremental charges. The straightforward application of the method has previously provided a full portrait of the nonlinear dynamics and bifurcations of the simplest memristor circuit composed by a capacitor and a flux-controlled memristor. This paper aims to show that the method is effective to analyze nonlinear dynamics and bifurcations in memristor circuits with more complex dynamics including Hopf bifurcations (originating persistent oscillations) and period–doubling cascades (leading to chaotic behavior). One key feature of the method is that it makes clear how initial conditions give rise to bifurcations for an otherwise fixed set of circuit parameters. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, these represent the first results that relate such bifurcations, which are referred to in the paper as Bifurcations without Parameters, with physical circuit variables as the initial conditions of dynamic circuit elements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of the optimal design of a grounded fractional order inductor using a generalized impedance converter. The nonidealities of the op amps have been taken into account while formulating the approximate frequency characteristics of the fractional order inductor for both Type-I and Type-II realizations. Based on these formulations a set of design guidelines is proposed to achieve minimum phase and magnitude errors for the realized fractional inductor. The minimization conditions have been validated by several simulation and experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Impedance transformation is one of the central concepts in high-frequency circuits and systems and is used ubiquitously for optimal power matching, noise matching, and high-efficiency power delivery to the antenna by power amplifiers. The matching network can be generally expressed as a path on the Smith chart and given the load and source impedances, there are theoretically infinite ways to achieve the transformation. When losses are included, each path will encounter a different loss, and currently, no comprehensive theory exist for finding the most optimal matching network. Furthermore, the networks will also provide different bandwidths of operation. Due to the matching network losses, it is often not optimal to force conjugate matching for maximizing end-to-end power transfer efficiency. In this paper, we provide a method toward finding 1) the globally most efficient path between two arbitrary impedances with lossy passives; 2) given the source and the load impedances, the optimal (typically non-conjugate) impedance to match and the highest efficiency path to reach the impedance; and 3) upper bounds on achievable efficiencies under the various scenarios. This paper also proposes ways to combine this method with nonlinear load-pull simulations for optimal combiner and matching network for integrated power amplifiers. This analysis creates interesting ways to maximize efficiency and bandwidths simultaneously and the paper also discusses this joint optimization. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive analysis of globally optimal impedance transformation networks between arbitrary impedances with lossy passives. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Back-bias control is a new degree of freedom brought by fully-depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) CMOS technologies, which can be used to control the oscillation frequency of voltage-controlled ring oscillators (VCROs). The resulting VCRO architecture is called a back-bias-controlled oscillator (BBCO). This paper compares it with the conventional current-starved ring oscillator (CSRO) topology in terms of power consumption and phase noise figure-of-merit (FoM), while taking practical design constraints of process-voltage-temperature (PVT) robustness and frequency tuning range into account. The proposed comprehensive analysis takes advantage of relevant and compact analytical models, as well as extensive pre-layout simulation results. The comparison is made at four different target oscillation frequencies, which are representative of frequency synthesis for WiFi/Bluetooth/LPWAN wireless communications and of clock generation for smartphone/Internet-of-Things processors: 300 MHz, 868 MHz, 2.45 GHz, and 5.18 GHz. In 28-nm FDSOI technology, the results demonstrate that BBCOs can intrinsically reach 1.69 to $4.63\times $ lower minimum power consumption and slightly better FoM values than CSROs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An energy-harvesting interface that incorporates a continuously scalable-conversion-ratio (CSCR) switched-capacitor (SC) dc-dc converter with maximum power point tracking (MPPT) is introduced in this paper. By exploiting unique characteristics of a CSCR SC converter, an MPPT based on the hill climbing algorithm is implemented with a real-time power monitoring scheme with a frequency-mapped sampling capacitor DAC, allowing variation-tolerant MPPT for various types of energy sources. The harvestable voltage range is significantly extended by a step-up/down convertible CSCR SC converter, and the voltage conversion efficiency is further improved with matrix-structured and load-mapped power switches. With the test chip fabricated in 28nm FDSOI technology, the proposed energy harvesting interface shows peak conversion efficiency of 89% and average efficiency of > 80% for 60-2, $794~\mu \text{W}$. MPPT efficiency of > 97 % is confirmed with energy harvesting measurement with a solar cell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with realization of fractional-order impedance functions by passive electrical networks composed of a fractional capacitor and some RLC components. The necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such a realization are found in a general case. Also for impedance functions described by a class of fractional-order transfer functions, the realizability conditions are stated as some algebraic conditions on the parameters of the transfer function. Moreover, a procedure is proposed for implementation of such impedance functions by passive electrical networks composed of a fractional capacitor and some RLC components. Numerical examples are presented to show the usefulness of the results of the paper in design of fractional-order electrical circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers a relevant class of networks containing memristors and (possibly) nonlinear capacitors and inductors. The goal is to unfold the nonlinear dynamics of these networks by highlighting some main features that are potentially useful for real-time signal processing and in-memory computing. In particular, an analytic treatment is provided for dynamic phenomena as the presence of invariant manifolds, the coexistence of different regimes, complex dynamics and attractors and the phenomenon of bifurcations without parameters, i.e., bifurcations due to changing the initial conditions of the state variables for a fixed set of circuit parameters. The paper also addresses the issue of how to design pulse independent voltage or current sources to steer the network dynamics through different manifolds and attractors. Two relevant examples are worked out in details, namely, a variant of Chua’s circuit with a memristor and a nonlinear capacitor and a relaxation oscillator with a memristor and a nonlinear inductor. In the latter example, the paper also studies the effect on manifolds and coexisting dynamics when real memristive devices are accounted for using a class of extended memristor models. The analysis is conducted by means of a recently developed technique named flux-charge analysis method (FCAM). Numerical simulations are presented to confirm the theoretic findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a nonlinear analytical model for an inverter-based switched-capacitor Class-D RF power amplifier (SCDPA). The root causes of the SCDPA AMAM and AMPM nonlinearities are studied. The major factors affecting SCDPA nonlinearities are identified as the unequal on-resistances of selected cell and unselected cell. Specifically, time-varying resistance of the switch, different transistor responses during the transition and parasitic resistance on the supply path (IR drop) are analyzed. Then, the system-level result, like EVM and power spectral density, can be obtained with nonlinear behavior of PA. The results of model calculation, schematic simulation, and measurement are presented and compared with validate the model both on transistor level and system level. This paper, for the first time, provides an accurate design guidance to enable fast architecture study and quick circuit-level prototype with close-to-optimum component initial parameters. It can be expanded to more architectures, therefore helps to pave the path to future design automation for highly linear SCDPAs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of analog integrated circuits is often limited by the noise generated in its components. Several circuit techniques exist for mitigating the effects of the low-frequency noise. In this paper, a novel approach is described, which can also reduce even-order distortion, another major limitation of analog circuits. It may also allow the use of single-ended circuits in applications where usually differential structures are needed. In most cases, the resulting single-ended circuit will be much simpler than the fully or pseudo-differential one. It does not require common-mode feedback circuitry, nor single-ended-to-differential and differential-to-single-ended conversions at the input and output ports. The amplifiers may be single-ended, using, e.g., inverter-based circuits, and the use of baluns can be avoided. The number of pins and pads of the chip can be reduced. In addition, the single-ended opamps of the circuit may require less power than differential ones. These factors and the omission of the common-mode feedback circuits as well as the single-ended/differential converters will usually allow significant power savings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Device mismatch is a key concern for high-resolution data converters. This paper presents a comprehensive study of the error-feedback (EF)-based mismatch error shaping (MES) technique. EF MES overcomes the key challenge of the classic dynamic element matching-based MES whose complexity grows exponentially with the number of bits; however, the prior EF MES comes with the limitations of limited shaping capability and reduced dynamic range. This paper demonstrates how to perform more advanced EF MES for various types of data converters. Moreover, this paper also proposes the use of digital prediction to address the dynamic range loss issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a foreground calibration method for both a sampler and a track-and-hold (T/H) buffer bandwidth mismatch in highly time-interleaved analog-to-digital converters (TI-ADCs). The T/H buffer bandwidth mismatch stems from the length difference of interconnect lines between the buffer and the channel ADC, while the sampler bandwidth mismatch arises from the mismatch in a switch and a sampling capacitor. To address both mismatches along with other mismatches residing in TI-ADCs, this papers utilizes least-squares (LS) minimization technique in order to extract mismatch parameters while injecting a sinewave at two distinct frequencies. Programmable capacitor arrays (PCAs) are used to tune the bandwidth of sampler, and correcting buffer bandwidth mismatch is performed in digital-domain. The method presented here is scalable to arbitrary number of interleaved paths, and can easily be combined with existing calibration methods for gain, offset, and timing-skew mismatches. Numerical experiment via Monte-Carlo simulations demonstrates significant performance improvement in the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) from 38 dB to 75 dB for a 32-channel time-interleaved ADC model that includes all major mismatches. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper considers a large class of memristor circuits of arbitrary order, and containing an arbitrary number of flux- or charge-controlled memristors, for which a state equation (SE) description can be obtained. By means of the SEs, it is shown that the state space of each circuit can be decomposed in infinitely many manifolds, and that in the autonomous case, each manifold is positively invariant and is characterized by a different reduced-order dynamics and attractors. These results are the basis for extending the analysis to the non-autonomous case, where time-varying independent sources are present. In particular, the chief result obtained in this paper shows how to analytically design external pulses for programming memristor circuits, i.e., how invariant manifolds and attractors can be changed and controlled by applying suitable charge or flux sources via time-varying voltage and/or current pulses with finite time duration. The main results are obtained by relying on a recently introduced technique for the analysis of memristor circuits in the flux-charge domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a novel ultra-low power maximum power point tracking (MPPT) technique with a wide tracking range. An indirect, non-interrupting approach using a novel timing-based algorithm is proposed. The proposed MPPT technique is self-adaptive and applicable to the various types of photovoltaic cells without external reconfiguration or the change of passive components. In addition, a variable gain is employed in the one-hot barrel shift register to reduce the transient response time. A test chip was fabricated in 65-nm CMOS technology. The test chip can harvest energy with the input voltage range of 0.4 V to 1.7 V and the step response time of less than 100 ms at the minimum supply voltage of 0.8 V. The tracking efficiency is up to 96.2% when supplied by a photovoltaic micro-cell array using an irradiation range of 200 lux to 1000 lux. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

High step-up converters are often used in photovoltaic applications due to low voltage of photovoltaic modules. In this paper, a study of several voltage step-up cells added on primary and secondary sides of an isolated dc-dc SEPIC (single ended primary inductor converter) is made, in order to increase its static gain and synthesize a family of converters. To perform this study and select the most appropriate resulting converter, theoretical and comparative analyzes are accomplished. They include a brief description of each converter, tables and curves with relevant information, such as voltage gain, voltage stresses and component count, and the identification of the use of coupled inductor or transformer based on the analysis of dc magnetizing current. Moreover, theoretical analysis and experimental results on a 50 kHz and 200 W prototype of selected isolated SEPIC with voltage doubler cell are presented to validate the proposed topology and concept. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deep learning training involves a large number of operations, which are dominated by high dimensionality Matrix-Vector Multiplies (MVMs). This has motivated hardware accelerators to enhance compute efficiency, but where data movement and accessing are proving to be key bottlenecks. In-Memory Computing (IMC) is an approach with the potential to overcome this, whereby computations are performed in-place within dense 2-D memory. However, IMC fundamentally trades efficiency and throughput gains for dynamic-range limitations, raising distinct challenges for training, where compute precision requirements are seen to be substantially higher than for inferencing. This paper explores training on IMC hardware by leveraging two recent developments: (1) a training algorithm enabling aggressive quantization through a radix-4 number representation; (2) IMC leveraging compute based on precision capacitors, whereby analog noise effects can be made well below quantization effects. Energy modeling calibrated to a measured silicon prototype implemented in 16 nm CMOS shows that energy savings of over $400\times $ can be achieved with full quantizer adaptability, where all training MVMs can be mapped to IMC, and $3\times $ can be achieved for two-level quantizer adaptability, where two of the three training MVMs can be mapped to IMC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it is proposed and explored the use of the Dickson charge pump (CP) to amplify time-variant signals. The study has been carried out through a theoretical analysis that provides an in-depth comprehension of the behavioral equations and the main design metrics commonly used to evaluate the performance of amplifiers. Starting from the analytical models, we show the conditions upon which the CP can be modeled with an equivalent small signal circuit and can amplify a signal. Then, assuming the CP working in the widest operative conditions, small-signal, large-signal and noise analysis are carried out. The results have been validated by extensive simulations and measurements on a proof of concept using a 130 nm CMOS technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new approach to augment existing noise models in a relaxation oscillator by including noise spikes during state change, an important aspect hitherto not covered in existing noise models, is proposed. Such noise spike is due to regeneration at the jump and this paper attempts to offer an explanation by viewing state change as a physical phase change in a thermodynamic system, which is also due to regeneration. The connection is established by viewing the relaxation oscillator as a combination of bistable circuit (exhibits metastablility) and a timing capacitor. Similarly the thermodynamic system exhibits physical phase change (metastability). Formula is derived to predict the “magnitude” of the noise spike, as a function of regeneration parameter, and hence design parameter such as gm, R, {I}_{0}. Simulations (Eldo) on circuits and simulations (Metropolis) on thermodynamic system as well as measurements on circuits fabricated in 0.13 \mu$m CMOS technology are consistent with theory. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The main focus of this paper is the presentation of reliable methods for the determination of the optimum coloring of a graph, commonly known in the literature as vertex coloring problem. It has been shown that networks of capacitively coupled oscillators can be used to solve vertex coloring problems. In this paper we address the negative impact of an unbalanced number of couplings for the oscillators on the performance of the network and compensate for this non-uniform coupling structure by an adjustment in the network itself. The negative effect of the memristor device-to-device variability of the NbOx memristor on the array functionality will be investigated and reduced via an adaptation of the memristor operating point. The main improvement in network performance is achieved by setting up a control procedure allowing the network to bypass the local solutions and converge to the global one. Two strategies inspired by global optimization algorithms will be proposed to allow the network to overcome sub-optimal solutions, and find the solution corresponding to the absolute minimum of a performance measure function of the vertex coloring problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-power and low-area neurons are essential for hardware implementation of large-scale SNNs. Various novel-physics-based leaky-integrate-and-fire (LIF) neuron architectures have been proposed with low power and area, but are not compatible with CMOS technology to enable brain scale implementation of SNN. In this paper, for the first time, we demonstrate hardware implementation of recurrent SNN using proposed low-power, low-area, and low-leakage band-to-band-tunneling (BTBT) based neurons. A low-power thresholding circuit is proposed. We further propose a predistortion technique to linearize a nonlinear neuron without any area and power overhead. We establish the equivalence of the proposed neuron with the ideal LIF neuron to demonstrate its versatility. The tunneling regime enables a high input impedance in the BTBT neurons (few $\text{G}\Omega$) to enable a voltage input without loading the synaptic array. To verify the effect of the proposed neuron, a 36-neuron recurrent SNN is fabricated in GF-45nm PDSOI technology. We achieved 5000x lower energy-per-spike at a similar area and 10x lower standby power at a similar area and energy-per-spike. Such overall performance improvement enables brain scale computing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents two high-efficiency charge pumps (CPs) by utilizing the gate voltage boosting technique (GVBT). Unlike traditional bulk-CMOS and all-NMOS CPs, an input bias voltage is independently applied to the gate terminal, and it improves the current driving capability without the need of large pumping capacitors or high-frequency clocks. Meanwhile, the GVBT decouples the state of transistors from the clocks connected to the pumping capacitor, and it can eliminate the reversion loss in both main and auxiliary circuits. Fabricated in a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ standard CMOS technology, the single-stage all-NMOS CP achieved a maximum output voltage of 6.589 V and a peak power efficiency of 80.08%. We also implemented the bulk-CMOS CP with GBVT for comparison, the single-stage all-NMOS CP achieved $\sim 1.24\times $ more output voltage than the bulk-CMOS CP under a load current of 1.5 mA. The voltage errors of the all-NMOS CP between the analytical and the measured results are less than 7%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many energy harvesters (EH) deliver an ac voltage and require a rectifier as a consequence. This paper describes how the rectifier affects the power flow transmitted from the EH to the load and how to tackle the different voltage amplitudes. This study has been performed using analytical calculations, numerical modeling and experiments. To reach the maximum power transfer, conventional methods apply a fraction of the open-circuit voltage delivered by the EH. In contrast, this study points out that the optimum operating point must be shifted by a quantity depending on the rectifier characteristics. This difference is particularly important when the EH provides relatively small ac voltages. Two classic rectifiers are covered: a diode bridge (DB) and a MOSFET bridge (MB). An approximated solution of the analytical model is proposed and allows to optimize the EH without cumbersome numerical computations. Experiments are conducted first with a function generator and then with an electromagnetic EH prototype. The outcomes from the analytical model and the numerical model are in good agreement with the experimental results. A new regulation method is proposed for maximizing the power transferred from the ac EH to the load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a highly linear BiCMOS sample and hold amplifier (SHA) providing 2.8-GS/s intermediate frequency (IF) sampling for a 1-GHz input bandwidth spanning from 1.5 to 2.5 GHz. A single-transistor hold-mode feedthrough cancellation technique is implemented to remove distortion resulting from the nonlinear parasitic capacitance at the sampling node. The SHA is designed in a mainstream 130-nm BiCMOS technology using SiGe heterojunction bipolar transistors to buffer and sample the wideband input. The proposed SHA enables monolithic integration with a high-speed analog-to-digital converter core to realize a high-performance converter solution. This independent sampling front end occupies a core chip area of 0.6 mm2 and consumes an average power of 1.26 W. The SHA is a pseudo-differential open-loop design that includes two cascaded track-and-hold amplifiers, a high-speed clock driver, and externally adjustable current mirror biases. The high-speed clock drivers and buffers add 170 mW to the total power consumption. The measurements of the fabricated SHA show a 10-bit effective resolution across the 1-GHz IF bandwidth and < −61-dBc HD2 and HD3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a low-power and area efficient 10-bit successive approximation register (SAR) analog-to-digital (ADC) with a hybrid capacitive-MOS consisting of a 7-bit MSB capacitive DAC (CDAC) and a 3-bit LSB MOS DAC (MDAC), which consumes less power and much smaller chip area than a pure CDAC. Instead of using a string of eight MOS transistors to control one unit capacitor, the 3-bit LSB MDAC is realized by a MOS string with four native MOS transistors to control two unit capacitors, which allows higher voltage drop and more reliable operation for each unit MOS. The overall energy consumption of the proposed CAP-MOS DAC is reduced by 56.2% compared to a Vcm-based 10-bit pure CDAC with the same unit capacitance. Under the sampling rate of 200 kS/s, the prototype 10-bit SAR ADC implemented in a 0.18- ${\mu }\text{m}$ CMOS technology achieves a signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio / spurious-free dynamic range of 56.91 /68.56 dB at 99-kHz input under a 0.6-V power-supply, while consumes $1.76~{\mu }\text{W}$ at 200 kS/s for a figure of merit of 15.38 fJ/step. The peak DNL and INL are +0.27/−0.21 LSB and +0.43/−0.45 LSB, respectively. The ADC occupies a small active area of 0.097 mm2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to its high resolution, small silicon area, and reasonable conversion rate, extended counting analog to digital conversion (EC-ADC) has become a competitive candidate for application in the readout circuits of high accuracy sensors. In this paper, an EC-ADC for large scale sensor arrays is proposed. At the system level, a double-sampling configuration for incremental \Sigma\Delta modulators is proposed. By applying this configuration, the clock frequency of EC-ADC can be almost halved for the same conversion accuracy and rate. At the circuit level, the contribution of class-AB operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) structure to the low power design is analyzed and a class-AB OTA applicable for EC-ADC is developed. The proposed architecture has been implemented using a commercial 0.18 \mum CMOS technology. Measured results show that a power consumption of less than 77 \muW can be achieved at the conversion rate of 51.2 Ksamples/s and 12.2-bit accuracy respectively. The converter core occupies 0.044 mm^2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a calibration scheme that can be used to correct the inter-stage gain error in two-stage analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). We measure the static nonlinearity at the raw ADC outputs and compensate it through a feedback path to adjust the gain in the analog domain, which avoids the dynamic range loss in the conventional pure digital calibrations. The proposed scheme detects the error via the missing-code-occurrence probability (MCOP), which is insensitive to the comparator offset and has better immunity to its noise. Besides the gain error, we discuss other DAC linearity issues, such as the implementations of the reference buffer and the low-dropout (LDO) regulator. To verify the MCOP calibration, we design a 12-bit successive-approximation-register ADC, employing the bridge-DAC, in 65-nm CMOS. We integrate the ADC operating at 100 MS/s with the MCOP calibration, the reference buffers, and the LDO. The measurement results demonstrate the linearity enhancement after the proposed calibration, where we improve the signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio to 61.38 dB, leading to a FoM of 16.7 fJ/conversion step at the Nyquist input frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An area-efficient low-power fully integrated output-capacitorless low-dropout regulator (OCL-LDO) is presented in this paper. The three-stage OCL-LDO utilizes an embedded differentiator-based active zero compensation technique together with adaptive biasing. The proposed active zero compensation helps enhance the unity-gain bandwidth (UGB) of the regulator with very small silicon area and almost no extra current consumption. The UGB is therefore able to be maintained above 2.5 MHz even at a measured quiescent current of mere $1.6~\mu \text{A}$. Adaptive bias is employed to further stabilize the circuit and extend the bandwidth extension as well as enhance the transient response. The chip area is 0.0021 mm2 with maximum load capability of 25 mA, which leads to a maximum current density of 11.9 A/mm2. The measured voltage spikes are below 40 mV for full-load transient responses, and the response time is about 1.2 ns. The voltage spikes of line transient responses are only 4 mV at full load. The measured full-load power-supply rejection is better than −44 dB up to 100 kHz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a 24-channel time-shared 8-bit digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with dual sampling to minimize the effective channel area of the column driver integrated circuit (IC) for high-resolution active-matrix organic light emitting diodes (AMOLED). The proposed time-shared DAC significantly reduces the effective channel area of the column driver IC, since a single high-speed DAC is shared among multi channels. The dual-sampling architecture for the output amplifiers also reduces the power consumption of the column driver IC, where the operating time of the time-shared DAC and the output amplifier is efficiently handled during the limited 1-horizontal time. The sampling accuracy of the dual-sampling architecture is improved by a simple dummy switch and a source follower. The proposed time-shared DAC with the dual sampling is implemented by a 0.13- $\mu \text{m}$ high-voltage complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor process and integrated in a 960-channel column driver IC, while the effective channel area of the column driver IC is 5520 $\mu \text{m}^{2}$. As a result of driving an 11-inch-wide quad extended graphics array AMOLED panel by using the prototype column driver IC, the panel uniformly generates a clear image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the analysis and design of a novel broadband low-noise amplifier (LNA) with larger than seven-octave bandwidth. To achieve good impedance matching, flat gain, and low noise over larger than seven-octave bandwidth, the combination technique of shunt-resistive feedback, dual inductive-peaking techniques as well as a compact improved active load supporting broadband RF biasing from dc to 20 GHz, is proposed for LNA design. The gain and noise improvement principles of the proposed technique are also analyzed theoretically. Based on the theoretical study, a three-stage LNA with larger than seven-octave bandwidth, i.e. 0.1 to 20 GHz, is designed and verified using a 0.15- $\mu \text{m}$ GaAs pHEMT technology. The LNA experimental results show a high gain of 28.6 dB, good noise figure of 3.1 to 5.8 dB, and output $P_{\mathrm {-1\,\,dB}}$ of 7.8 to 12.7 dBm over the broad frequency range of 0.1 to 20 GHz. The proposed LNA has a compact chip size of only 1.53 mm2 including testing input/output pads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a low-power frequency-shift keying (FSK) transmitter (TX) with an all-digital phase locked loop (ADPLL) based on direct modulation for use in Bluetooth low energy application. A low power ADPLL with a Retimer, 2-stage time to digital converter, and gain estimation technique is proposed to achieve low-power direct FSK modulation at 1 Mbps data rate. A high-efficiency class-D power amplifier, with dual output power modes and a ramping digital filter (RDF), is proposed to reduce the spurious tones. The proposed TX is implemented on 1P6M 55-nm CMOS technology with a die size of 0.53 mm2. The phase noise is −119 dBc/Hz at a 1 MHz offset with frequency of 2.44 GHz. TX output power levels of 1.6 and 10 dBm have a power consumption of 3.9 and 18 mW, respectively. The power control ranges for the 1.6 and 10 dBm modes are 25 and 23 dB, respectively. With the RDF, when the output level is +1.6 dBm, the second, and third harmonic distortions at the TX output are −44 and −49 dBm, respectively. The proposed TX achieves an error vector magnitude of 3.48% at an output power level of +1.6 dBm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, conditions for checking the realizability of fractional-order impedance functions by passive networks composed of a fractional element (either a fractional capacitor or a fractional inductor) and some RLC components are derived. To this end, at first the newly obtained conditions for realizability of fractional-order impedance functions by a passive network composed of a fractional capacitor and some RLC components are extended to include the case that the polynomials involving in the impedance function can have roots on the imaginary axis. Then, the necessary and sufficient conditions are found on a fractional-order impedance function to be realized by a passive network composed of a fractional element and some RLC components. Furthermore, a procedure for finding the realization in the realizable cases is proposed. Finally, the realizability conditions for a special class of fractional-order impedance functions are simplified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new family of conditioning circuits used in electrostatic kinetic energy harvesters (e-KEHs), generalizing a previously reported conditioning circuit known as the Bennet's doubler. The proposed topology implements a conditioning scheme described by a rectangular charge-voltage cycle (QV-cycle) of tunable aspect ratio. These circuits show an exponential increase of the converted energy over operation time if studied in the sole electrical domain. The QV-cycle's aspect ratio can be set to values that were previously inaccessible with other exponential conditioning circuits. After a brief intuitive presentation of the new topology, its operation is rigorously analyzed and its dynamics are quantitatively derived in the electrical domain. In particular, the aspect ratio of the rectangular QV-cycle describing the biasing scheme of the transducer is expressed as a function of the circuit's parameters. Practical considerations about the use of the reported conditioning circuits in actual e-KEHs are also presented. These include a discussion on the applications of the proposed conditioning, a description of the effects of electrical nonidealities, and a proposition of an energy extracting interface. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A design methodology for making magnetic coupling wireless power transfer (MC-WPT) systems resonate at given frequencies is proposed in this paper. Proposing such a method not only can improve the energy efficiency against frequency splitting, but also can satisfy the requirement of frequency standards and then promote its industrial application. The method is based on eigenvalues configuration and comprehensively considers all electric parameters. The quantitative relationship between the performance indexes and electric parameters is derived, based on which the expected electric parameters can be quickly and accurately determined. The design theory and design flow are provided, and practical systems are designed, simulated and measured to show the effectiveness of the proposed method. The results show that the proposed method can: 1) eliminate frequency splitting to make MC-WPT systems resonate at a given frequency; 2) utilize frequency splitting to make MC-WPT systems resonate at two given frequencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a single-coarse dual-fine architecture that improves energy-efficiency of pipelined-SAR analog-to-digital converters (ADCs). A coarse and fast sub-ADC is used to quantize the most significant bits (MSBs), which are encoded with a proposed residue transformation method to control the residue generation of the first stages in two fine channels. The residue voltages generate on the capacitive digital-to-analog converters (C-DACs) of split fine channels directly without successive approximation processes. Therefore, the conversion rate is increased and the power is reduced. A shuffle mechanism is introduced into split-ADC based digital background calibration to avoid the divergence of the conventional algorithm in the proposed architecture. A high-energy-efficiency dynamic amplifier is also introduced as the residue amplifier. A 14-bit 60-MS/s ADC is prototyped in a 28-nm CMOS process. The digital calibration engine operates under 0.9-V supply, other parts of the ADC core operate under 1.05-V supply. The ADC core consumes 4.26 mW. Measurement results show that the calibration improved the signal-to-noise and distortion ratio (SNDR) and spur-free dynamic range (SFDR) dramatically, the calibrated ADC achieves SNDR and SFDR of 66.9 dB and of 91.0 dB respectively, translating to a Schreier FoM of 165.4 dB and a Walden FoM of 39.3 fJ/conversion-step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, four control strategies for DC-DC buck converters are proposed, compared and analyzed: a single-loop adaptive control strategy (SA), a double-loop adaptive control strategy (DA), a single-loop disturbance observer-based control strategy (SDOB) and a double-loop disturbance observer-based control strategy (DDOB). First, the nominal system without considering the parametric uncertainties of the DC-DC buck converter is built to help develop the SA and DA. The SA is built by adaptive and backstepping control approaches, and the DA is set up by adaptive and sliding mode control approaches. Additionally, a model considering parametric uncertainties is introduced, giving the opportunity to develop the SDOB and DDOB. The SDOB is developed using a designed disturbance observer and backstepping control technique, and the DDOB is synthesized using a designed disturbance observer and sliding mode control method. Finally, the advantages and disadvantages of the four proposed control strategies are compared and analyzed through experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a highly efficient gallium nitride (GaN) monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) Doherty power amplifier (DPA) from 4.6 to 5.5 GHz with the consideration of the influence of the peaking transistor’s output capacitor $(C_{\mathrm {out}}$) operated in Class-C state is presented. Based on the load-modulation behavior analysis, the effect of the $C_{\mathrm {out}}$ of the peaking transistor on the performance of the wideband DPA has been theoretically analyzed for the first time by directly evaluating the value of the peaking transistor’s $C_{\mathrm {out}}$. A hybrid matching technique has been proposed to ensure that the DPA can realize a proper load-modulation with high back-off efficiency in a wide bandwidth. In this method, the peaking transistor is matched using a simple T-shape band-pass type network with the $C_{\mathrm {out}}$ of the peaking transistor in Class-C operation state compensated properly, while the carrier transistor is matched using a 2-point matching method. For verification, a wideband GaN MMIC DPA with the frequency range of 4.6 to 5.5 GHz was designed using a 0.25- $\mu {\mathrm{ m}}$ GaN on silicon-carbon high-electron-mobility transistor process. Experimental results show that the fabricated DPA can realize the output power of 41.1-41.6 dBm and the drain efficiency (DE) of 57.6%-63.3% at saturation in the whole frequency band. The measured DE at 6-dB power back-off is 51%-56.4%. Good linearity with high average efficiency performance was obtained when excited by a 160-MHz modulated signal after linearization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a capacitive wireless power transfer system, due to the pF-level coupling capacitance, resonant inductors are commonly used at the primary side to boost voltage and at secondary side to boost the current. However, the inductors are bulky, in particular when it comes to integration, thereby not preferred by some space-sensitive applications like smartphones, smart glasses and headphones. This paper proposes a capacitive wireless power transfer architecture with no inductors at the receiver side. A high conversion ratio step down switched capacitor converter (SCC-CPT), rather than inductors, is used to compensate for the impedance mismatch between the secondary side of the capacitive coupler and the load. The analysis method and its associated design procedure of the SCC-CPT system is developed with the target of clarifying the tradeoffs among the secondary side efficiency, coupler voltage stress, receiver side integrability, and the primary side compensation network gain. Finally, a 7.5 W, 12 MHz SCC-CPT prototype was constructed to validate the proposed analysis and design. The measured system efficiency is 75.6 % at 7.5 W output, and the secondary side switched capacitor converter efficiency is 96.4 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a monolithically integrated E-band amplifier multiplier chain (AMC) developed in 130 nm SiGe BiCMOS process. This E-band AMC is composed of a 25 GHz 1:1 power divider, two 25 GHz driver amplifiers (DA1,2), a 75 GHz passive frequency tripler, and a 75 GHz power amplifier (PA). By applying a bypass tuning capacitor based power enhancing technique in the single-ended DA and PA, the output power and power-added-efficiency (PAE) of the AMC have been effectively improved. Benefiting from the proposed passive tripler core with second harmonic suppression function, and the impedance matching network with frequency selection characteristics, the AMC presents better harmonic suppression performance compared with the conventional topology. The bias circuits with temperature compensation are applied to the DA and PA to ensure the performance of the AMC when the temperature changes. The AMC has a measured output power exceeding 0 dBm in the entire E-band frequency range with a peak output power of 10.9 dBm at 77 GHz, and exhibits a record PAE of 8.25 %. Within the 3 dB operating frequency range from 69 to 87 GHz, the rejection of fundamental and second harmonics are better than 33.5 dB. The AMC can work properly between −40°C and 125 °C with the proposed temperature compensation bias circuits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the metastability of true single-phase clock (TSPC) D flip flops (DFFs) and its impact on the resolution of Vernier time-to-digital converters (TDCs). The mechanisms of the metastability of TSPC DFFs are investigated and the analytical expressions of setup time and hold time are obtained. A shunt capacitor technique capable of reducing setup time and hold time to zero with no power and delay penalty is proposed. The impact of PVT (process, voltage, temperature) on the effectiveness of the proposed technique is quantified using simulation. Vernier TDCs, both right-shifting and left-shifting, with untuned and tuned DFFs are designed in TSMC 130 nm 1.2 V CMOS technology and analyzed using Spectre with BSIM3V3 device models. Simulation results demonstrate TDCs with tuned DFFs enjoy zero conversion error while the right-shifting and left-shifting TDCs with untuned DFFs have 1-bit and 5-bit conversion errors or 11% and 56% error rates, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose a fully-integrated reconfigurable charge pump in a 0.18- $\mu \text{m}$ CMOS process; this converter is applicable for self-powered Internet-of-Things applications. The proposed charge pump uses a two-dimensional frequency modulation technique, which combines both the pulse-frequency modulation (PFM) and pulse-skip modulation (PSM) techniques. The PFM technique adjusts the operating frequency of the converter according to the variations in the load current, and the PSM technique regulates the output voltage. The proposed two-dimensional frequency modulation technique can improve the overall power conversion efficiency and the response time of the converter under light load conditions. A photovoltaic cell was chosen as the input source of the proposed converter. To adapt to the variations in the output voltage of a photovoltaic cell under different light illumination intensities, we built a reconfigurable converter core with multiple power conversion ratios of 2, 2.5, and 3 for the regulated output voltage of 1.2 V when the input voltage ranged from 0.53 V to 0.7 V. Our measurement results prove that the proposed capacitive power converter could achieve a peak power conversion efficiency of 80.8%, and the efficiency was more than 70% for the load current that ranged from $10~\mu \text{A}$ to $620~\mu \text{A}$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a switched capacitor network (SCN)-based bandgap voltage reference (BGR) circuit designed and implemented in a 65nm standard CMOS process with a wide temperature range, high precision, low supply voltage and low power consumption for IoT device application. The proposed BGR employs a 2x charge pump with ripple optimization design to supply the ${V} _{\mathbf {EB}}$ generator, which can relax ${V} _{\mathbf {DD}}$ from 0.9V to 0.5V.A proportional to absolute temperature (PTAT) current source is proposed to bias the PNP BJT in order to reduce the nonlinearity of ${V} _{\mathbf {EB}}$. Moreover, a voltage divider SCN with low leakage consideration to form the complementary to absolute temperature (CTAT) voltage is designed to reduce the nonlinearity of its coefficient, while a series-parallel SCN with adjusted clock swing to form the PTAT voltage is designed to improve the line regulation of the BGR. The measurement result shows that the proposed BGR has a temperature coefficient (TC) of 42 ppm/°C at 0.5V supply within −40 °C to 120 °C. The line regulation is 3.2mV/V or 0.64%/V from 0.5V to 1V. Based on 6-chip test result, it shows a $3\sigma / \mu $ variation of 3.08% before trimming, while 0.36% after trimming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper introduces a 12 bit 2.5 bit/cycle SAR-based pipeline ADC employing a self-bias gain boosting amplifier. The single-stage amplifier achieves a low-frequency gain of 37 dB, while consuming 1.3 mW of power consumption with 1.3 V of analog power supply. A 2.5 bit/cycle SAR ADC realizes as the sub-ADC in each stage, and reduces both power consumption and silicon area. A two-channel sampling architecture is employed to double the sampling rate and thereby maximize circuit efficiency. A digital calibration technique is used to reduce non-linearity and mismatches due to the RDAC, as well as gain error and offset of the open-loop residue amplifier. The prototype ADC was fabricated in TSMC 40-nm technology, and consumes 10.71 mW with 1.1 V / 1.3 V digital / analog power supplies. When operating at 125 MS/s, the ADC achieves an SFDR of 66.59 dB before calibration and 80.3 dB after calibration when measured at Nyquist frequency. The experimental results show a Walden FoM of 101 fJ/c.-s. before calibration and 47 fJ/c.-s. after calibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]