This thesis work consists of two research projects. The first project presented is on waveform design for car radars. These radars are used to detect other vehicles to avoid collision. In this project, we attempt to find the best waveform that distinguishes large objects from small ones. This helps the radar system reach more reliable decisions. We consider several models of the problem with varying complexity. For each model, we present optimization results calculated under various constraints regarding how the waveform is generated and how the reflected signal is processed. The results show that changing the radar waveform can result in better target classification. The second project is about digital-to-analog converter (DAC) linearization. Ideally, DACs have a linear input-output relation. In practice, however, this relation is nonlinear which may be harmful for many applications. A more linear input-output relation can be achieved by modifying the input to a DAC. This method, called predistortion, requires a good understanding of how DAC errors contribute to the nonlinearity. Assuming a simple DAC model, we investigate how different error functions lead to different types of nonlinearities through theoretical analyses and supporting computer simulations. We present our results in terms of frequency spectrum calculations. We show that the nonlinearity observed at the output strongly depends on how the error is modeled. These results are helpful in designing a predistorter for linearization.

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<p>The Sigma Delta Modulator (SDM) based analog to digital conversion is cost effective and have the advantages as higher reliability, increased functionality, and reduction in chip cost.</p><p>The thesis work includes the modeling of SDM with the signal flow graph in Matlab, optimization of the coefficients to improve the noise transfer function and signal transfer function. A procedure to find the maximum stable input range for the design. Scaling the inputs of the integrator so that the maximum output signal can be obtained according to the operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) output range. Further we derived error bound for the design. Then step by step realization of the SDM form the signal flow graph (SFG) to a fully differential switched-capacitor (SC) network is shown. The work also includes complete differential transistor level realization for 3-bit flash analog to digital converter (ADC), thermometric to binary encoder, a switch-capacitor digital to analog converter (DAC) circuit and an on-chip circuit realization of the non-overlapping clock generation circuitry.</p>

A 4 bit, Rom-Less Direct Digital Frequency Synthesizer (DDFS) is designed in 65nm CMOS technology. Interleaving with Return-to-Zero (RTZ) technique is used to increase the output bandwidth and synthesized frequencies. The performance of the designed synthesizer is evaluated using Cadence Virtuoso design tool. With 3.2 GHz sampling frequency, the DDFS achieves the spurious-free dynamic range (SFDR) of 60 dB to 58 dB for synthesized frequencies between 200 MHz to 1.6 GHz. With 6.4 GHz sampling frequency, the synthesizer achieves the SFDR of 46 dB to 40 dB for synthesized frequencies between 400 MHz to 3.2 GHz. The power consumption is 80 mW for the designed mixed-signal blocks.

The Sigma Delta Modulator (SDM) based analog to digital conversion is cost effective and have the advantages as higher reliability, increased functionality, and reduction in chip cost. The thesis work includes the modeling of SDM with the signal flow graph in Matlab, optimization of the coefficients to improve the noise transfer function and signal transfer function. A procedure to find the maximum stable input range for the design. Scaling the inputs of the integrator so that the maximum output signal can be obtained according to the operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) output range. Further we derived error bound for the design. Then step by step realization of the SDM form the signal flow graph (SFG) to a fully differential switched-capacitor (SC) network is shown. The work also includes complete differential transistor level realization for 3-bit flash analog to digital converter (ADC), thermometric to binary encoder, a switch-capacitor digital to analog converter (DAC) circuit and an on-chip circuit realization of the non-overlapping clock generation circuitry.

With the growing trend of wireless electronics, frequency spectrum is crowded with different applications. High data transfer rate solutions that operate in license-exempt frequency spectrum range are sought. The most promising candidate is the 60 GHz multi-giga bit transfer rate millimeter wave circuit. In order to provide a cost-effective solution, circuits designed in CMOS are implemented in a single SOC. In this work, a modeling technique created in Cadence shows an error of less than 3dB in magnitude and 5 degree in phase for a single transistor. Additionally, less than 3dB error of power performance for the PA is also verified. At the same time, layout strategies required for millimeter wave front-end circuits are investigated. All of these combined techniques help the design converge to one simulation platform for system level simulation. Another aspect enabling the design as a single SOC lies in integration. In order to integrate digital and analog circuits together, necessary peripheral circuits must be designed. An on-chip voltage regulator, which steps down the analog power supply voltage and is compatible with digital circuits, has been designed and has demonstrated an efficiency of 65 percent with the specific area constraint. The overall output voltage ripple generated is about 2 percent. With the necessary power supply voltage, gate voltage bias circuit designs have been illustrated. They provide feasible solutions in terms of area and power consumption. Temperature and power supply sensitivities are minimized in first two designs. Process variation is further compensated in the third design. The third design demonstrates a powerful solution that each aspect of variations is well within 10%. As the DC conditions are achieved on-chip for both the digital and analog circuits, digital and analog circuits must be connected together with a DAC. A high speed DAC is designed with special layout techniques. It is verified that the DAC can operate at a speed higher than 3 Gbps from the pulse-shaping FIR filter measurement result. With all of these integrated elements and modeling techniques, a high data transfer rate CMOS RF SOC operating at 60 GHz is possible.

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In this thesis work, a design of 14-bit, 20MS/s segmented digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is presented. The segmented DAC uses switched-capacitor configuration to implement 8 (LSB) + 6 (MSB) segmented architecture to achieve high performance for minimum area. The implemented LSB DAC is based on quasi-passive pipelined DAC that has been proven to provide low power and high speed operation. Typically, capacitor matching is the best among all integrated circuit components but the mismatch among nominally equal value capacitors will introduce nonlinear distortion. By using dynamic element matching (DEM) technique in the MSB DAC, the nonlinearity caused by capacitor mismatch is greatly reduced. The output buffer employed direct charge transfer (DCT) technique that can minimize kT/C noise without increasing the power dissipation. This segmented DAC is designed and simulated in 0.18 μm CMOS technology, and the simulated core DAC block only consumes 403 μW. / Graduation date: 2012

Continuous-time (CT) delta-sigma (ΔΣ) analog-to-digital converters (ADC) have emerged as the popular choice to achieve high resolution and large bandwidth due to their low cost, power efficiency, inherent anti-alias filtering and digital post processing capabilities. This work presents a detailed system-level design methodology for a low-power CT ΔΣ ADC. Design considerations and trade-offs at the system-level are presented. A novel technique to reduce the sensitivity of the proposed ADC to clock jitter-induced feedback charge variations by employing a hybrid digital-to-analog converter (DAC) based on switched-capacitor circuits is also presented. The proposed technique provides a clock jitter tolerance of up to 5ps (rms). The system is implemented using a 5th order active-RC loop filter, 9-level quantizer and DAC, achieving 74dB SNDR over 20MHz signal bandwidth, at 400MHz sampling frequency in a 1.2V, 90 nm CMOS technology. A novel technique to improve the linearity of the feedback digital-to-analog converters (DAC) in a target 11-bits resolution, 100MHz bandwidth, 2GHz sampling frequency CT ΔΣ ADC is also presented in this work. DAC linearity is improved by combining dynamic element matching and automatic background calibration to achieve up to 18dB improvement in the SNR. Transistor-level circuit implementation of the proposed technique was done in a 1.8V, 0.18μm BiCMOS process.

Recently, smart dust or wireless sensor networks are gaining more attention.These autonomous, ultra-low power sensor-based electronic devices sense and process burst-type environmental variations and pass the data from one node (mote) to another in an ad-hoc network. Subsystems for smart dust are typically the analog interface (AI), analog-to-digital converter (ADC), digital signal processor (DSP), digital-to-analog converter (DAC), power management, and transceiver for communication. This thesis project describes an event-driven (ED) digital signal processing system (ADC, DSP and DAC) operating in continuous-time (CT) with smart dust as the target application. The benefits of the CT system compared to its conventional counterpart are lower in-band quantization noise and no requirement of a clock generator and anti-aliasing filter, which makes it suitable for processing burst-type data signals. A clockless EDADC system based on a CT delta modulation (DM) technique is presented. The ADC output is digital data, continuous in time, known as “data token”. The ADC employs an unbuffered, area efficient, segmented resistor-string (R-string) feedback DAC. A study of different segmented R-string DAC architectures is presented. A comparison in component reduction with prior art shows nearly 87.5% reduction of resistors and switches in the DAC and the D flip-flops in the bidirectional shift registers for an 8-bit ADC, utilizing the proposed segmented DAC architecture. The obtained SNDR for the 3-bit, 4-bit and 8-bit ADC system is 22.696 dB, 30.435 dB and 55.73 dB, respectively, with the band of interest as 220.5 kHz. The CTDSP operates asynchronously and process the data token obtained from the EDADC. A clockless transversal direct-form finite impulse response (FIR) low-pass filter (LPF) is designed. Systematic top-down test-driven methodology is employed through out the project. Initially, MATLAB models are used to compare the CT systems with the sampled systems. The complete CTDSP system is implemented in Cadence design environment. The thesis has resulted in two conference contributions. One for the 20th European Conference on Circuit Theory and Design, ECCTD’11 and the other for the 19th IFIP/IEEE International Conference on Very Large Scale Integration, VLSI-SoC’11. We obtained the second-best student paper award at the ECCTD.