Design of a Current-Controlled Oscillator for Wide-Dynamic-Range, Time-Based, Delta-Sigma Modulator

Young In Kim; Soon Jae Kweon; Soh Myung Ha; Min Kyu Je

doi:10.23075/jicas.2022.8.1.004

Young In Kim Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Soon Jae Kweon Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology / New York University, Abu Dhabi
Soh Myung Ha New York University, Abu Dhabi
Min Kyu Je Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23075/jicas.2022.8.1.004

Keywords: Analog-to-Digital Converter(ADC), Current-Controlled Oscillator(CCO), Delta-Sigma Modulator(DSM)

Abstract

This paper presents a design of 15-stage, current-controlled oscillator (CCO) for wide-dynamic-range, time-based, delta-sigma modulator (DSM). The DSM utilizes a time-based quantizer which consists of ring CCO-based integrator and phase extended quantizer. In order to achieve both high loop-gain of the DSM and low-power consumption of the oscillator, the CCO is designed only with inverter delay-cells. In addition, phase extended quantizer is used to add most-significant bit to the DSM output, increasing resolution of the DSM. The designed DSM also utilizes the inherent clocked-averaging property. As a result, the DSM does not need an external dynamic element matching circuit to reduce the effect of the digital-to-analog converter mismatch. The simulation results show that the center frequency and gain of the CCO are near 1.25 MHz and 949 GHz/A under the bias current of 1.2 μA. Through an experiment using the fabricated chip in 65-nm CMOS technology, we confirmed those efficient performances of the designed CCO.

Author Biographies

Young In Kim, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Young In Kim received B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Korea University, Seoul, South Korea, in 2017, and the M.S. degree in electrical engineering from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, South Korea, in 2019. He was a researcher in the Department of Electrical Engineering, KAIST, from 2019 to 2021.

Soon Jae Kweon, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology / New York University, Abu Dhabi

Soon Jae Kweon received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2010 and 2018, respectively.
He was a post-doctoral researcher with Information Engineering and Electronics Research Institute, KAIST, from 2018 to 2020. After finishing the first post-doctoral research, he is now with New York University Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates as a post-doctoral associate. His research aims at designing low-power sensor interface ICs, wireless communication ICs, and data converters for miniature biomedical devices and wireless sensor nodes.

Soh Myung Ha, New York University, Abu Dhabi

Soh Myung Ha is an Assistant Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi, UAE, and a Global Network Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at New York University, New York, NY, USA. He received the B.S (summa cum laude) and the M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 2004 and 2006, respectively. From 2006 to 2010, he worked at Samsung Electronics as a mixed-signal circuit designer for commercial multimedia devices. After this extended career in industry, he returned to academia as a Fulbright Scholar, and obtained the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Bioengineering from the Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA, in 2015 and 2016, respectively. Since 2016, he has been with New York University Abu Dhabi and New York University. He received a Fulbright Fellowship in 2010 and the Engelson Best Ph.D. Thesis Award for Biomedical Engineering from the Department of Bioengineering, University of California, San Diego in 2016. He has served as an Associate Editor of Smart Health (Elsevier), IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, and Frontiers in Electronics, and is currently a member of the Analog Signal Processing Technical Committee and the Biomedical and Life Science Circuits and Systems Technical Committee of the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society. His research aims at advancing the engineering and applications of silicon integrated technology interfacing with biology in a variety of forms ranging from implantable biomedical devices to unobtrusive wearable sensors.

Min Kyu Je, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology

Min Kyu Je received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees, all in Electrical Engineering, from Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Korea, in 1996, 1998, and 2003, respectively. In 2003, he joined Samsung Electronics, Giheung, Korea, as a Senior Engineer and worked on multi-mode multi-band RF transceiver SoCs for GSM/GPRS/EDGE/WCDMA standards. From 2006 to 2013, he was with Institute of Microelectronics (IME), Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. He worked as a Senior Research Engineer from 2006 to 2007, a Member of Technical Staff from 2008 to 2011, a Senior Scientist in 2012, and a Deputy Director in 2013. From 2011 to 2013, he led the Integrated Circuits and Systems Laboratory at IME as a Department Head. In IME, he led various projects developing low-power 3D accelerometer ASICs for high-end medical motion sensing applications, readout ASICs for nanowire biosensor arrays detecting DNA/RNA and protein biomarkers for point-of-care diagnostics, ultra-low-power sensor node SoCs for continuous real-time wireless health monitoring, and wireless implantable sensor ASICs for medical devices, as well as low-power radio SoCs and MEMS interface/control SoCs for consumer electronics and industrial applications. He was also a Program Director of NeuroDevices Program under A*STAR Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) from 2011 to 2013, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at National University of Singapore (NUS) from 2010 to 2013. He was an Associate Professor in the Department of Information and Communication Engineering at Daegu Gyenogbuk Institute of Science and Technology (DGIST), Korea from 2014 to 2015. Since 2016, he has been an Associate Professor in the School of Electrical Engineering at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Korea.
His main research areas are advanced IC platform development including smart sensor interface ICs and ultra-low-power wireless communication ICs, as well as microsystem integration leveraging the advanced IC platform for emerging applications such as intelligent miniature biomedical devices, ubiquitous wireless sensor nodes, and future mobile devices. He is an editor of 1 book, an author of 6 book chapters, and has more than 300 peer-reviewed international conference and journal publications in the areas of sensor interface IC, wireless IC, biomedical microsystem, 3D IC, device modeling and nanoelectronics. He also has more than 50 patents issued or filed. He has served on the Technical Program Committee and Organizing Committee for various international conferences, symposiums and workshops including IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), IEEE Asian Solid-State Circuits Conference (A-SSCC) and IEEE Symposium on VLSI Circuits (SOVC). He is currently working as a Distinguished Lecturer of IEEE Circuits and Systems Society.

Homepage : https://impact.kaist.ac.kr/

Design of a Current-Controlled Oscillator for Wide-Dynamic-Range, Time-Based, Delta-Sigma Modulator

Abstract

Author Biographies

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