We propose a design optimization flow for a high-speed and low-power operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) using a gm/ID lookup table design methodology in scaled CMOS. This methodology advantages from using gm/ID as a primary design parameter to consider all operation regions including strong, moderate, and weak inversion regions, and enables the lowest power design. SPICE-based lookup table approach is employed to optimize the operation region specified by the gm/ID with sufficient accuracy for short-channel transistors. The optimized design flow features 1) a proposal of the worst-case design scenario for specification and gm/ID lookup table generations from worst-case SPICE simulations, 2) an optimization procedure accomplished by the combination of analytical and simulation-based approaches in order to eliminate tweaking of circuit parameters, and 3) an additional use of gm/ID subplots to take second-order effects into account. A gain-boosted folded-cascode OTA for a switched capacitor circuit is adopted as a target topology to explore the effectiveness of the proposed design methodology for a circuit with complex topology. Analytical expressions of the gain-boosted folded-cascode OTA in terms of DC gain, frequency response and output noise are presented, and detailed optimization of gm/IDs as well as circuit parameters are illustrated. The optimization flow is verified for the application to a residue amplifier in a 10-bit 125 MS/s pipeline A/D converter implemented in a 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The optimized circuit satisfies the required specification for all corner simulations without additional tweaking of circuit parameters. We finally explore the possibility of applying this design methodology as a technology migration tool, and illustrate the failure analysis by comparing the differences in the gm/ID characteristics.

Digital delta-sigma modulators (DDSMs) applied in fractional-N frequency synthesizers suffer from spurious tones which undermine the synthesizer's spectral purity. We propose a solution featuring no hardware overhead while achieving equivalent spur elimination effect as using LFSR-dithering. This method can be implemented on MASH and single-loop DDSMs of 3rd- and 2nd-order.

A radio frequency identification tag LSI operating with the carrier frequency of 13.56 MHz as well as storing nonvolatile information in embedded ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) has been developed. A full wave rectifier composed of PMOS transistor diodes and NMOS transistor switches achieves RF-to-DC power conversion efficiency over 54%. The entire 16 kbits write and read transaction time can be reduced to 2.1 sec by the use of FeRAM, which corresponds to 2.2 times speed enhancement over conventional EEPROM based tag LSIs. The communication range of the FeRAM based tag LSI can be effectively improved by storing antitheft information in a ferroelectric nonvolatile flip-flop, which can reduce the power consumption of FeRAM from 27 µW to 5 µW. The communication range for the antitheft gate system becomes 70 cm.

Switching transients in digital MOS circuits can perturb analog circuits integrated on the same die by means of coupling through the substrate. This paper describes an experimental technique for observing the effects of such substrate noise. Various approaches to reducing substrate crosstalk (the use of physical separation of analog and digital circuits, guard rings, and a low-inductance substrate bias) are evaluated experimentally for a CMOS technology with a substrate comprised of an epitaxial layer grown on a heavily doped bulk wafer. Observations indicate that reducing the inductance in the substrate bias is more effective than either physical separation or guard rings in minimizing substrate crosstalk between analog and digital circuits fabricated on epitaxial substrates. To enhance understanding of the experimental results, two-dimensional device simulations are used to show how crosstalk propagates via the heavily doped bulk. Device simulations are also used to predict the nature of substrate crosstalk in CMOS technologies integrated in uniform, lightly doped bulk substrates, showing that in such cases the substrate noise is highly dependent on layout geometry. Finally, a method of including substrate effects in SPICE simulations for circuits fabricated on epitaxial, heavily doped substrates has been developed using a single-node substrate model.

The buried oxide nonintegrities, represented as the equivalent fixed oxide charge and interface trap densities at both the upper and lower interface of buried oxide, are evaluated for low-dose and high-dose SIMOX wafers, and their effects on device characteristics are investigated. The equivalent fixied oxide charge and trap densities at the lower interface, which are measured with buried oxide capacitors, are negligibly small in as-fabricated SIMOX wafers. This result enables us to make an analytical model of the parasitic drain/source-to-substrate capacitance in an SOI MOSFET, in which the effect of the depletion layer under the buried oxide is considered. The influence of thinner buried oxide and process-induced fixed oxide charge on the parasitic capacitance is explored with this model. The equivalent fixed oxide charge and trap densities at the upper interface are evaluated by the threshold voltage measurement in an SOI NMOSFET. The principle of this evaluation as well as the experimental technique are described in detail. The oxide charge and trap densities at the upper interface are higher than those at the lower interface for both SIMOX wafers. With a new model of the subthreshold slope based on a two-dimensional potential analysis the influence of the trap at the upper interface is discussed.

This paper describes the architecture and implementations of an automatic digital tuning circuit for a complex bandpass filter (BPF) in a low-power and low-cost transceiver for applications such as personal authentication and wireless sensor network systems. The architectural design analysis demonstrates that an active RC filter in a low-IF architecture can be at least 47.7% smaller in area than a conventional gm-C filter; in addition, it features a simple implementation of an associated tuning circuit. The principle of simultaneous tuning of both the center frequency and bandwidth through calibration of a capacitor array is illustrated as based on an analysis of filter characteristics, and a scalable automatic digital tuning circuit with simple analog blocks and control logic having only 835 gates is introduced. The developed capacitor tuning technique can achieve a tuning error of less than 3.5% and lower a peaking in the passband filter characteristics. An experimental complex BPF using 0.18 µm CMOS technology can successfully reduce the tuning error from an initial value of -20% to less than 2.5% after tuning. The filter block dimensions are 1.22 mm1.01 mm; and in measurement results of the developed complex BPF with the automatic digital tuning circuit, current consumption is 705 µA and the image rejection ratio is 40.3 dB. Complete evaluation of the BPF indicates that this technique can be applied to low-power, low-cost transceivers.

High-speed, area-efficient, and low-power Montgomery modular multipliers for RSA algorithm have been developed for digital signature and user authentication in high-speed network systems and smart card LSIs. The multiplier-accumulators (MAC) in the developed Montgomery modular multipliers have a non-identical multiplicand/multiplier word length organization. This organization can eliminate the bandwidth bottleneck associated with a data memory, and enables to use a single-port memory for area and power reductions. The developed MAC is faster than the conventional identical word length organization due to the shortened critical path. For smart card applications, an area-efficient architecture with 42 kgates can produce 1.2 digital signatures in a second for 2,048-bit key length with the power consumption of 6.8 mW.

Circuit techniques to realize stable recall operation and virtually unlimited read/program cycle operations in ferroelectric memory based nonvolatile (NV) SRAM composed of six-transistor and four-ferroelectric capacitor cells have been developed. Unlimited program cycle operation independent of ferroelectric material characteristics is realized by proper control of plate lines. Reliability evaluation results show that the developed memory cell has sufficient operation margin after stresses of temperature, fatigue, DC bias. Application of NV-SRAM to programmable logic devices has been discussed with a prototype of dynamically programmable gate arrays.

We propose a methodology of loop design optimization for fourth-order fractional-N phase locked loop (PLL) frequency synthesizers featuring a short settling time of 5 µsec for applications in an active RFID (radio frequency identification) and automobile smart-key systems. To establish the optimized design flow, equations presenting the relationship between the specification and PLL loop parameters in terms of settling time, loop bandwidth, phase margin, and phase noise are summarized. The proposed design flow overcomes the settling time inaccuracy in conventional second-order approximation methods by obtaining the accurate relationship between settling time and loop bandwidth with the MATLAB Control System Toolbox for the fourth-order PLLs. The proposed flow also features the worst-case design by taking account of the process, voltage, and temperature (PVT) variations in loop filter components, and considers the tradeoff between phase noise and area. The three-step optimization process consists of 1) the derivation of the accurate relationship between the settling time and loop bandwidth for various PVT conditions, 2) the derivation of phase noise and area as functions of area-dominant filter capacitance, and 3) the derivation of all PLL loop components values. The optimized design result is compared with circuit simulations using an actually designed fourth-order fractional-N PLL in a 1.8 V 0.18 µm CMOS technology. The error between the design and simulation for the setting time is reduced from 0.63 µsec in the second-order approximation to 0.23 µsec in the fourth-order optimization that proves the validity of the proposed method for the high-speed settling operations.