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Ring amplifiers enable efficient amplification with less power consumption. These are characterized by fairly power requirements, and innate rail-to-rail output swing and are robust against PVT variations. In this paper, we are presenting an improved self-biased anti-series diode-based ring amplifier (ASD-RAMP) design, implemented on 45-nm CMOS technology. The design uses two diode-connected PMOS transistors that are connected in an anti-series manner to generate a large resistance because of which a high dead-zone voltage is generated. The ASD-RAMP has a settling time of only 4.05 ns, which is nearly half of the conventional self-biased ring amplifier (CSB-RAMP). In comparison to CSB-RAMP, the proposed ASD-RAMP improves the dead-zone voltage by 1. 1 × while requiring 6.76% less power. The circuit is durable and suitable for high-performance applications since it exhibits great resilience to PVT variations in addition to the improved dead zone voltage and reduced settling time. • Anti-Series Diode arrangement based ring amplifier is proposed to improve the dead zone voltage and the settling time. • RC electrical equivalent model for the settling time analysis of the circuit. • Proposed ring amplifier circuit is robust against the PVT variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a pipelined noise-shaping SAR (PLNS-SAR) ADC for high SNDR, wide bandwidth, and low power consumption. The proposed design achieves a sharp second-order NTF of an error feedback structure, without a multi-input comparator and additional residue amplifier. Additionally, the SNDR is improved via zero optimization. Additionally, the speed is enhanced via prediction logic and alternately using the passive switched capacitor FIR filter. This consequently achieves the high-power efficiency of the ADC. The simulated SNDR is 79.97 dB; it achieves a 12.5-MHz BW at a 175-MHz sampling rate, with OSR of 7. The total power consumption of the ADC is 4.27 mW at a 1.1-V supply. The FoM S , SNDR is 174.6 dB. The proposed structure achieves high resolution and wide bandwidth with good energy efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the design of a 2nd-order Noise-Shaping (NS) Successive-Approximation-Register (SAR) Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) employing a cascade of temperature-compensated dynamic amplifier and a ring amplifier in the feedback path to realize a low-power/low-noise loop filter that is robust to temperature variation. A new mismatch calibration technique optimized for a noise-shaping SAR ADC is also presented to overcome the challenge of finding correct digital bit weights for NS SAR ADCs. Fabricated in 65 nm Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) process, the prototype ADC demonstrates a peak Signal-to-Noise-and-Distortion Ratio (SNDR) of 71.35 dB and a dynamic range of 74 dB with a signal bandwidth of 625 kHz. Over 80-degree of the temperature range, the ADC exhibits only 2 dB drop in SNDR thanks to the temperature-compensated dynamic amplifier. With a total power consumption of $130~\mu \text{W}$ , the ADC achieves Walden Figure-of-Merit (FoM) of FoM $_{\text {W}}= 34.4$ fJ and Schreier FoM of FoM $_{\text {S,DR}}=171$ dB, respectively.

An 8-bit switched-capacitor multiply-and-accumulator (MAC) in 65nm CMOS is presented. Based on a cascaded low-power ring-amplifier-based switched-capacitor DACs, the MAC circuit features a programmable accumulation length in MAC computation. Fabricated in 65nm CMOS, the prototype MAC circuit achieves a precision-scaled energy efficiency of 1.32fJ per MAC operation, which is comparable to other state-of-the-art MAC circuits, along with best-in-class linearity. The noise performance has been verified using four real-world convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and 10,000-image data sets with up to 1,000 classes with an accuracy drop of less than 2% compared to the baseline 32-bit floating-point MAC.

This brief focuses on the robustness of the ring amplifier (RA), an alternative to the operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) in the deep nanoscale CMOS process. The effective gain (EG) of the RA shows diverse characteristics from the DC gain and can be treated as a non-linear gain error (NLGE). The EG shows a notable variation when taking process, supply voltage, and temperature (PVT) into consideration. An improved statistical calibration based on the back-end stage data is proposed to compensate the NLGE. A prototype SAR-assisted pipeline ADC with a quick-start RA is implemented in a 28-nm CMOS process, achieving 60.3 dB SNDR and 76.5 dB SFDR with a 6 MHz input at 625 MS/s. The SNDR and SFDR are 58.6 dB and 70.7 dB with a Nyquist input frequency and consumes 13.2 mW, achieving Walden and Schreier figure-of-merit (FoM) values of 30.4 fJ/conv.-step and 162.2 dB. For a −6 dBFS 50 MHz input, the measured SNDR and SFDR are above 55.5 dB and 68.9 dB with supply voltage and temperature fluctuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A $4\times $ interleaved pipelined ADC for direct-RF sampling applications is presented. It leverages the performance advantages of ring amplifiers to unlock greater architectural freedom. The first pipeline stage MDAC with a “passive-hold” mode eliminates the sub-ADC sampling path and associated problems. A high-speed ringamp topology employs digital bias control, robust common-mode feedback (CMFB), and an elegant self-resetting behavior. An asynchronous, event-driven timing control system improves several aspects of performance and enables fully dynamic power consumption and modular design re-use. A general technique is presented whereby the signal-to-distortion ratio (SDR) of any amplifier in the system can be measured in the background with an analog hardware overhead of only one comparator. In this amplifier-intensive architecture utilizing 36 ringamps, the 4-GS/s ADC fabricated in 16-nm CMOS achieves 62-dB SNDR and 75-dB SFDR at Nyquist, consumes 75 mW (including input buffer), and has a Walden figure of merit (FoM) of 18 fJ/conversion-step and a Schreier FoM of 166 dB, advancing the state of the art in direct-RF sampling ADCs by roughly an order of magnitude. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief presents a more detailed model for the slewing behavior of self-biased ring amplifiers and outlines the factors which affect the large signal operation. A set of analytical expressions derived for the self-biased ring amplifier are presented which are valid for a larger portion of a design space than prior expressions. The equations presented are well matched with simulation results and the accuracy of the derived equations is reported. Finally, the paper examines the proposed equations and simulation results to provide insight about design parameter dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposed a pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC) that utilizes a high-linearity input buffer and a two-step input-split fully differential ring amplifier (ringamp). The implemented input buffer based on a gain-boost cascode current source, is optimized for linearity over a wider frequency range by suppressing fluctuations in tail current. To save power consumption without compromising common-mode and power-supply rejection, a fully differential ring amplifier is employed as the residue amplifier. Additionally, a correlation-based calibration is implemented, which involves injecting pseudo-random dither signals into each multiplying digital-to-analog converter (MDAC) stage to enhance linearity. Fabricated in a 28-nm CMOS process, the 1.25-GS/s 10-bit ADC achieves a spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 70.7 dB and a signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR) of 50.3 dB at Nyquist input. The core conversion circuits of the ADC consume only 30.2 mW from a single 1-V supply. This translates to a Walden figure of merit (FoM) of 90 fJ/conversion-step and a Schreier FoM of 153.5 dB, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a fully dynamic ringamp-based pipelined ADC with integrated reference buffer that operates from 1-MS/s to 1-GS/s and maintains a Walden Figure-of-Merit (FoM) of 14 fJ/conversion-step across this range. A “split-reference” regulation technique is introduced, which provides multiple buffered replicas with varying accuracies and output impedances to the core ADC circuitry, relaxing overall buffer design requirements and improving efficiency. The regulator blocks are implemented with fully dynamic discrete-time loops. Furthermore, a technique for background reconstruction of residue amplifier settling behavior is also described. The “scope-on-chip” captures high-resolution transient waveforms using a 1-bit stochastic ADC. It is shown how these waveform data can be used for optimization of ringamp biasing and PVT tracking. The ADC is fabricated in a 16-nm CMOS technology and at 1 GS/s with a Nyquist input achieves 59.5-dB SNDR, 75.9-dB SFDR, and 10.9-mW total power consumption with only 8% consumed by the reference regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a 14-b 100-MS/s single-channel pipelined-successive-approximation register (SAR) ADC using a weighted-averaging correlated level shifting (WACLS) technique. For a closed-loop residue amplification, the error voltage due to the finite operational amplifier (opamp) gain can be ideally removed by the proposed WACLS technique with a low-gain opamp. In addition, the opamp bandwidth degradation, by an extra level-shift capacitor ($C_{\mathrm {LS}}$) in two-phase amplification CLS-based circuits, can be relaxed and minimized in WACLS. Furthermore, a speed-enhancement scheme is provided to alleviate the speed degradation owing to one extra amplification phase and long bit-cycling time from two-phase amplification and SAR circuits, respectively. A modified reference swapping (RS) technique is applied to diminish the capacitor mismatch error without any calibration. A quick startup ring amplifier design is introduced for duty-cycled control power saving. The chip is implemented in the 28-nm CMOS technology and occupies an active area of 0.018 mm2. At 100 MS/s and Nyquist-rate input, the measured SNDR is 71.7 dB with 0.7-mW power consumption only. The calibration-free ADC achieves Walden and Schreier figure-of-merit of 2.2 fJ/conversion-step and 180.2 dB, respectively. Compared with the prior-art ADCs with sampling frequency > 100 MS/s and SNDR > 65 dB, this work advances the state-of-the-art by 3 $\times $ and 5.3 dB, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief presents a novel adaptive slew-rate ring amplifier. The proposed technique enhances the linearity, without stability degradation, using a rail-to-rail controlled feed-forward path used in parallel with the main ring amplifier. It offers additional degrees of freedom to improve the linearity/power consumption trade-off proposed in other reported slew-rate enhancement techniques. The proposed design has been implemented and simulated in a low-cost CMOS 65 nm technology. Operating from a single 0.9 V power supply, it consumes $186~\mu \text{A}$ for switching frequency of 210MHz. For the same current consumption, it achieves an improvement of 10 dB in the total harmonic distortion (THD) compared to state-of-the-art. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a 3rd-order discrete-time delta-sigma modulator (DT DSM) with ring-amplifier-based integrators. To fulfill the performance requirement of the switched-capacitor (SC) integrator for the DSM with low power consumption, a dynamic ring amplifier is employed to replace the conventional continuous-time operation transconductance amplifier (OTA) in the integrator. The offset and 1/ f noise of the 1st-stage integrator are further suppressed with an auto-zero structure. The quantizer is realized by a 3-bit flash analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to reduce the quantization noise power, while the mismatch in the feedback digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is suppressed by a dynamic weighting averaging (DWA) circuit. The DT DSM prototype is fabricated with a 0.18-μm CMOS process with an active area of 1.39 mm2, achieving 99.3 dB SNDR and 104.3 dB DR with a signal bandwidth of 10 kHz and an oversampling ratio of 128. The power consumption is 963.9 μW under a 3.3V power supply, corresponding to a Schreier figure-of-merit(FoMs) value of 174.5 dB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief presents an ultra-low-power two-channel 12b 140 MS/s 28-nm CMOS analog-to-digital converter (ADC) for use in next-generation mobile communications systems. The proposed ADC employs a two-stage pipelined successive-approximation register (SAR) ADC architecture, where the SAR ADC at each stage determines 5b and 8b, respectively. In the first-stage 5b SAR ADC, the switching power consumption is significantly reduced due to the switching operation by only a separate digital-to-analog converter (DAC) with a small unit capacitance, which generates the comparator decision threshold. When this setup is applied to an actual system, the reference voltage driver of the system is less burdened. Furthermore, the SAR ADC employs a custom-encapsulated capacitor to improve the limited linearity of a DAC caused by parasitic capacitance. A residue amplifier employs an ultra-low power ring amplifier structure. The amplifier is shared by each channel to reduce not only the power consumption and die area but also channel mismatches. The prototype ADC in a 28-nm CMOS process demonstrates a measured differential non-linearity and integral non-linearity within 1.50 LSB and 2.85 LSB at 12b, respectively, with a maximum signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio and a spurious-free dynamic range of 58.0 dB and 73.7 dB at 140 MS/s, respectively. The ADC occupies an active die area of 0.202 mm2 and consumes 1.1 mW at a 0.8-V supply voltage, corresponding to a figure of merit of 12.1 fJ/conversion-step. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes averaging correlated level shifting (ACLS) and reference swapping (RS) techniques for simultaneously reducing errors from the finite opamp gain and capacitor mismatch in a pipelined analog-to-digital converter (ADC). The ACLS technique reduces the sensitivity of ADC accuracy to the opamp gain by averaging the finite opamp gain errors in two amplifying phases, where the error in the second amplifying phase is designed to have the opposite polarity to the one in the first amplifying phase. Meanwhile, ACLS also decreases the opamp’s thermal noise. In addition, the RS utilizes the averaging operation to reduce capacitor random mismatch error and combines a simple capacitor layout arrangement to decrease capacitor gradient mismatch error. Using the ACLS and RS techniques, a 16-bit ring amplifier-based pipelined ADC without calibration is realized in a 90-nm CMOS technology. Operating at 24 MS/s for a 10-MHz sine wave input, the proposed ADC achieves a 74.3-dB signal-to-noise-and-distortion ratio (SNDR) and 85.5-dB spurious free dynamic range (SFDR), and consumes 5.1 mW, yielding Walden and Schreier figure of merits of 50.1 fJ/conversion-step and 168 dB, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ring amplification has recently been shown capable of simultaneously achieving high linearity and high bandwidth (BW) in low-voltage, deep nanoscale CMOS processes, while retaining good power efficiency. In these processes, the low but very flat open-loop (OL) gain versus output voltage characteristic of the ring amplifier can be exploited, together with its high BW, to overcome the low intrinsic gain limitations that otherwise mandate the use of power-consuming analog circuits and complex digital calibration. Within this context, this paper introduces the techniques of dead-zone degeneration (DZD) and second-stage bias enhancement to further extend the linearity and speed limits of the ring amplifier, respectively. These techniques are applied to a 12-b, 1-GS/s, single-channel pipelined ADC implemented in a 28-nm planar CMOS process, which achieves 56.6-dB SNDR and 73.1-dB SFDR while consuming 24.8 mW from a single 0.9-V supply, resulting in Schreier and Walden figure-of-merit (FoM) values of 159.6 dB and 45 fJ/conv.-step, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an experimental prototype of 2nd-order multi-bit ΔΣAD modulator with dynamic analog components for low power and high signal to noise and distortion (SNDR) application. The integrators in the modulator are realized by ring amplifier without static current. Multi-bit quantizer and analog adder in the feed-forward modulator is realized by a passive-adder embedded successive approximation register analog to digital converter which consists of capacitor array and a dynamic comparator. The dynamic comparator does not dissipate static power at all when a pre-amplifier is not used. Proposed modulator is fabricated in TSMC 90 nm CMOS technology. Measurement results of the modulator dynamic range is over 84 dB. Measured peak SNDR = 77.51 dB, SNR = 80.08 dB are achieved for the bandwidth of BW = 94 kHz while a sinusoid differential -1 dBFS input is sampled at 12 MS/s. The total analog power consumption of the modulator is 0.37 mW while the supply voltage is 1.1 V. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief introduces a design approach for Class-AB-style ring amplifiers which differs from the design of conventional amplifiers. The theory of operation of Class-AB-style ring amplifier is discussed as well as the different design tradeoffs that affect its design. Consequently, a systematic design methodology for Class-AB-style ring amplifier is introduced. A design example of a switched-capacitor gain amplifier with a closed-loop gain of 32, using a three-stage self-biased ring amplifier, is presented. This example has been designed and implemented in UMC 130-nm CMOS technology. It achieves an spurious-free dynamic range of 72 dB with a clock frequency of 25 MHz. It operates from a single 1.2-V supply and consumes 400 $\boldsymbol \mu \text{A}$. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new non-clocked standalone bulk-driven ring amplifier based on master-slave technique that ensures stable operation under process, supply voltage and temperature variations. Unlike the conventional ring amplifier the proposed topology operates without the switched capacitor technique under extremely low supply voltage. The bulk-driven ring amplifier was designed using a triple-well 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The simulation results show a 91 dB gain with 13 μW power dissipation from a 0.5 V supply voltage and the total harmonic distortion was equal to 0.29 %. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ring amplifier is an energy efficient and high output swing alternative to an OTA for switched-capacitor circuits. However, the conventional ring amplifier requires external biases, which makes the ring amplifier less practical when we consider process, supply voltage, and temperature (PVT) variation. This paper presents a self-biased ring amplifier scheme that makes the ring amplifier more practical and power efficient while maintaining the benefits of efficient slew-based charging and an almost rail-to-rail output swing. We introduce an improved auto-zero scheme that eliminates the gain error caused by the parasitic capacitance across the auto-zero switch. Furthermore, a comparator-less pipeline ADC structure takes advantage of the characteristics of the ring-amplifier to replace the sub-ADC in each pipeline stage. The prototype ADC has measured SNDR, SNR and SFDR of 56.6 dB (9.11 b), 57.5 dB and 64.7 dB, respectively, for a Nyquist frequency input sampled at 100 MS/s, and consumes 2.46 mW. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper the fundamental concept of ring amplification is introduced and explored. Ring amplifiers enable efficient amplification in scaled environments, and possess the benefits of efficient slew-based charging, rapid stabilization, compression-immunity (inherent rail-to-rail output swing), and performance that scales with process technology. A basic operational theory is established, and the core benefits of this technique are identified. Measured results from two separate ring amplifier based pipelined ADCs are presented. The first prototype IC, a simple 10.5-bit, 61.5 dB SNDR pipelined ADC which uses only ring amplifiers, is used to demonstrate the core benefits. The second fabricated IC presented is a high-resolution pipelined ADC which employs the technique of Split-CLS to perform efficient, accurate amplification aided by ring amplifiers. The 15-bit ADC is implemented in a 0.18\, \mum CMOS technology and achieves 76.8~dB SNDR and 95.4~dB SFDR at 20 Msps while consuming 5.1~mW, achieving a FoM of 45 fJ/conversion-step. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A 2.5-GS/s 12-bit four-way time-interleaved pipelined-SAR ADC is presented in 28-nm CMOS. A bias-enhanced ring amplifier is utilized as the residue amplifier to achieve high bandwidth and excellent power efficiency compared with a traditional operational amplifier. A high linearity front-end is proposed to alleviate the non-linearity of the diode for ESD protection in the input PAD. The embedded input buffer can suppress the kickback noise at high input frequencies. A blind background calibration based on digital-mixing is used to correct the mismatches between channels. Additionally, an optional neural network calibration is also provided. The prototype ADC achieves a low-frequency SNDR/SFDR of 51.0/68.0 dB, translating a competitive FoM w of 0.48 pJ/conv.-step at 250 MHz input running at 2.5 GS/s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, a pipelined noise-shaping successive-approximation register analog-to-digital converter (PLNS-SAR ADC) structure was proposed to achieve high resolution and to be free from comparator design requirements. The inter-stage amplifier and integrator of the PLNS-SAR ADC were implemented through a ring amplifier with high gain and speed. The ring amplifier was designed to improve power efficiency and be tolerant to process–voltage–temperature (PVT) variation, and uses a single loop common-mode feedback (CMFB) circuit. By processing residual signals with a single ring amplifier, power efficiency can be maximized, and a low-power system with 30% lower power consumption than that of a conventional PLNS-SAR ADC is implemented. With a high-gain ring amplifier, noise leakage is greatly suppressed, and a structure can be implemented that is tolerant of mismatches between the analog loop and digital correction filters. The measured signal to noise distortion ratio (SNDR) is 70 dB for a 5.15 MHz bandwidth (BW) at a 72 MS/s sampling rate (Fs) with an oversampling ratio (OSR) of 7, and the power consumption is 2.4 mW. The FoM S , SNDR   (= SNDR + 10 log 10 BW/Power) is 163.5 dB. The proposed structure in this study can achieve high resolution and wide BW with good power efficiency, without a filter calibration process, through the use of a ring amplifier in the PLNS-SAR ADC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gain clamping in a long-wavelength-band erbiumdoped fiber amplifier (L-band EDFA) using a C/L-band WDM coupler is demonstrated. The gain for the amplifier is clamped at 15.5 dB with a gain variation of less than 0.2 dB from input signal power ranging from -40 to -14 dBm with almost negligible noise-figure penalty. However, the flatness of the gain spectrum is slightly degraded due to the nonoptimisation of the EDF length. The advantage of this configuration is that the oscillating light does not appear at the output port of the amplifier. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]