The advancement in integrated circuit (IC) technology has resulted in scaling down of device sizes and supply voltages without proportionally scaling down the threshold voltage of the MOS transistor. This, coupled with the increasing demand for low power, portable, battery-operated electronic devices, like mobile phones, and laptops provides the impetus for further research towards achieving higher integration on chip and low power consumption. High gain, wide bandwidth amplifiers driving large capacitive loads serve as error amplifiers in low-voltage low drop out regulators in portable devices. This demands low power, low area, and frequency-compensated multistage amplifiers capable of driving large capacitive loads. The first part of the research proposes two power and area efficient frequency compensation schemes: Single Miller Capacitor Compensation (SMC) and Single Miller Capacitor Feedforward Compensation (SMFFC), for multistage amplifiers driving large capacitive loads. The designs have been implemented in a 0.5??m CMOS process. Experimental results show that the SMC and SMFFC amplifiers achieve gain-bandwidth products of 4.6MHz and 9MHz, respectively, when driving a load of 25Kδ/120pF. Each amplifier operates from a ??1V supply, dissipates less than 0.42mW of power and occupies less than 0.02mm2 of silicon area. The inception of the latest IEEE standard like IEEE 802.16 wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) for 10 -66 GHz range demands wide band amplifiers operating at high frequencies to serve as front-end circuits (e.g. low noise amplifier) in such receiver architectures. Devices used in cascade (multistage amplifiers) can be used to increase the gain but it is achieved at an expense of bandwidth. Distributing the capacitance associated with the input and the output of the device over a ladder structure (which is periodic), rather than considering it to be lumped can achieve an extension of bandwidth without sacrificing gain. This concept which is also known as distributed amplification has been explored in the second part of the research. This work proposes certain guidelines for the design of distributed low noise amplifiers operating at very high frequencies. Noise analysis of the distributed amplifier with real transmission lines is introduced. The analysis for gain and noise figure is verified with simulation results from a 5-stage distributed amplifier implemented in a 0.18??m CMOS process.

Large off-shore wind farms raise the concern of widespread tripping of off-shore wind generator in the presence of system faults and corresponding voltage dips that could potentially cause system wide blackout. In this thesis an offshore wind farm and three different types of power transmission are modeled and studied using simulation software. Off-shore wind farm composed of fixed speed induction generators and HVAC interconnection, HVAC interconnection plus STATCOM and HVDC interconnections are studied. Onshore grid faults are simulated for each interconnection. Voltage tolerance curves are established to assess fault ride through capability of each interconnection and compared with different grid transmission ride through capacity required by grid operator.

Die Berechnung der Netzverluste in Niederspannungsnetzen kann nur über Umwege erfolgen, da viele Netzbetreiber keine digitalisierten Daten ihrer Netze besitzen. Hier wird ein Ansatz zur Ermittlung der technischen Verluste anhand vorhandener Netzdaten beschrieben. / The major part of network operator of low voltage nets do not have digitised data of their nets. That’s why net losses must be calculated indirectly. This article describes an approach for getting results in a direct way.

The modern society uses more and more electronic devices needed to being able to function together. This put higher demands on the electrical grid together with that the typical load have changed from the past. Therefore utility companies are obliged to keep the voltage within certain limits for this to function. What exact these limits have been have not always been clear since they have not been gathered in one single document.  This thesis is a cooperation with Kraftringen who also has been the initiator. Kraftringen would like to become more proactive in their work regarding electric power quality. For becoming more proactive continuously measurements have to be done but the locations have to be carefully selected in the beginning to get a wider perspective of the grid. Energy markets inspectorate (EI) is supervisory of the electric power quality in Sweden and since 2011 they have published a code of statutes (EIFS 2011:2 later 2013:1) intended to summarize limits on voltage. Some of the electrical power quality aspects are not mentioned in EIFS 2013:1 and standards have to be used to find limited values. Flicker and interharmonics are not mentioned in EIFS 2013:1 and for values on flicker the standard SS-EN 50160 has to be used and for interharmonics the standard SS-EN 61000-2-2 state limit values. Besides all this there are standards with stricter limits than EIFS 2013:1 e.g. for total harmonic distortion on voltage were SS-EN 61000-2-2 suggest 6 % instead of 8 %. Three different field studies have been conducted in order to get some perception of the present situation regarding electric power quality. Two measurements were conducted on a typical office building because they represents a large part of the typical load in Lund. The third measurement was conducted on a substation in a rural area to get a perception of the situation outside urban areas.  These measurements shown that the overall electric power quality was within given limits according to EIFS 2013:1 and different standards. However, conducted measurements shown some interesting results. Both the typical office buildings have a slightly capacitive power factor which results in that the voltage inside the building is going to be slightly higher than at the substation. Since the voltage level at the measured urban substation was above nominal voltage level with about 2-5 % this could be problematic. Another eventual problem with a load with a capacitive power factor is resonance with the inductive parts of the grid like transformers leading to magnified harmonic levels. It is suggested that Kraftringen expand their number of permanent electric power quality measurement locations to get a better overview of the present situation. The best suited locations to start with are such that have received complaints earlier, preferably measured on the low voltage side of the transformer for also register the amount of zero sequence harmonics. Next step in the measurement expansion would be substations known to be under higher load than others or substations with a PEN-conductor in a smaller area than the phase conductors, supplying a typical office load with high amounts of third harmonics and unbalance. From this it would be appropriate to spread out the measurement locations geographically to better get to know the grids behaviour.

The challenges facing low voltage grids are rising as an increasing number of domestic houses transition from fossil fueled heating to electricity based heating. Several environmental goals and visions have the same transition from fossil based power to electricity based power in mind for the transportation sector. One of the most important tools for this transformation is widely regarded to be the electric vehicle. With the demands of the electric vehicle pressuring the power grid, several questions arise regarding the growth of the electric vehicle market and what repercussions it may have on the grid. This paper focuses on a typical low voltage grid in southern Sweden and what effects a growing electric vehicle market may have on it. Through computer-assisted simulations based on several future scenarios regarding the EV market, this paper finds that few modifications and reinforcements are needed on this particular grid within the next 10 to 15 years. After this timeframe the voltage drop becomes a serious concern and should be addressed. / Utmaningarna som lågspänningsnät står inför växer i takt med att fler bostäder övergår från fossilbaserad till elbaserad värme. Flera miljösatsningar och visioner ämnar pådriva samma förändring inom transportsektorn och eldrivna fordon anses som ett av de viktigaste verktygen för att genomföra detta. Med ytterligare potentiella påfrestningar på lågspänningsnäten från de elektriska fordonens behov ställs frågan hur utbredd den elektriska fordonsmarknaden kommer att bli och vilken påverkan den kommer ha på elnäten. I detta arbete belyses ett typiskt lågspänningsnät i södra Sverige och vilka effekter elfordonens utbredning kan tänkas ha på den. Genom datorstödda simuleringar enligt flera olika prognosscenarion finner arbetet att relativt få förändringar och förstärkningar behöver göras på det analyserade nätområdet inom ett tidsspann på ca 10 till 15 år. Efter detta tidsspann orsaker lasterna ett högt spänningsfall i det aktuella nätet som bör åtgärdas.

While high power buck-boost regulators have been extensively researched and developed in the academia and industry, low power counterparts have only recently gained momentum due to the advent of different battery powered and remote electronics. The application life-time of such applications, e.g., remote surveillance electronics can be extended tremendously by enabling energy autonomy. While battery powered electronics last long but they must be replenished once the battery is depleted either by replacing the battery or by retrieving the electronics and then recharging. Instead, energy harvesting from available ambient sources on the spot will enable these electronics continuous operation unboundedly, probably even beyond the lifetime of the electronics. Interestingly enough, recent advancements in micro-scale energy transducers compliment these demand [1-13]. Micro-transducers producing energy from different ambient sources have been reported. These transducers produce enough energy to support a wide range of operations of the remote electronics concurrently. These transducers along with an additional storage elements greatly increase the energy autonomy as well as guaranteed operation since harvested energy can then be stored for future use when harvestable energy is temporarily unavailable. Recently several buck-boost regulators with low power and low input operating voltage have been reported both from academia and industry [14-24]. Some of this work focuses on increasing efficiency in the mid-load range (10mA-100mA), while some other focuses on lowering input range. However, so far no one has reported a buck-boost regulator operating with sub-200nW bias power while harvesting energy from sub-500mV input range. This work focuses on the development of a low voltage low bias current buckboost regulator to attain these goals. In this work, complete design of a PFM mode buck-boost regulator has been discussed in details. Basic topology of the regulator and working principle of the implemented architecture along with the advantages of the specific topology over that of the others have been discussed in short to provide an uninterrupted flow of idea. Later, Transistor level design of the basic building blocks of the buck-boost regulator is discussed in details with different design features and how those are attained through transistor level implementation are discussed. Subsequently, the physical layout design technique and considerations are discussed to inform the reader about the importance of the layout process and to avoid pitfalls of design failure due to layout quality issues. Measurement results are presented with the fabricated IC. Different characterization profile of the IC have been discussed with measured data and capture oscilloscope waveforms. Load regulation, line regulation, efficiency, start-up from low voltage, regulation with line and load transient events are measured, presented and discussed. Different characteristics of the prototype are compared with prior arts and are presented in a comparison table. Die micrograph is also presented along with the different issue of the IC testing

Power minimization in wireless transceivers has become increasingly critical in recent years with the emergence of standards for short-distance applications in the 900 MHz and 2.4 GHz industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) radio bands. The demand for long battery life and better portability in such applications has led to extensive research on low power radio architectures. This dissertation introduces receiver topologies for low-power systems and presents a theoretical performance analysis of the topologies. Two fully integrated receiver down-converters that demonstrate the concept are implemented in a 0.13-[mu]m CMOS technology. These topologies employ merged mixers and IF amplifiers in order to reduce power dissipation for a given dynamic range performance. In the described topologies, the input stage of a mixer is used to simultaneously provide conversion gain and baseband amplification. This is achieved by applying the down-converted IF signal to input of the mixer. Consequently, the effective conversion gain of the design is greatly enhanced with current requirement primarily determined by the input transconductor. Potential degradation mechanisms related to instability and second-order distortion are identified and solved by the use of appropriate circuit techniques. Noise and linearity performance of the down-converters is analyzed and compared to that of conventional cascaded design counterparts. The potential for enhancement of IIP3 performance through cancellation of nonlinear products is discussed. Potential extensions of the above work including feedback-based architectures that exploit multiple loops for further maximizing the power efficiency of receiver front-ends are also presented.

Bandgap reference circuits are used in a host of analog, digital, and mixed-signal systems to establish an accurate voltage reference for the entire IC. The most used CMOS implementation for voltage references is the bandgap circuit due to its high predictability, and low dependence of the supply voltage and temperature of operation. This work studies a CMOS implementation of a resistor-less bandgap reference, which consumes low power. The most relevant and traditional approaches usually employed to implement bandgap voltage references are investigated. The impact of process, power-supply, load and temperature variations has been analyzed and simulated. The functionality of critical components of the circuit has been verified through chip implementation. / text

The principal neurons of the medial superior olive (MSO) are considered to be responsible for transforming the temporal information present in the binaural acoustic stimulus into an output encoding sound location along the horizontal axis. Spatial resolution of sound localization depends critically on the time resolution with which MSO neurons can detect microsecond differences in the timing of inputs from the two ears. This fast temporal processing is contingent on voltage gated ion channels. The work presented in this thesis demonstrates that two currents, namely a hyperpolarization activated cationic current and low voltage activated potassium current dynamically interact to regulate the intrinsic time resolution of MSO neurons. We observe that the ability of MSO neurons to perform sub-millisecond temporal processing matures after birth, especially around the time of the clearing of the auditory canal. Hyperpolarization activated cationic current was found to be one of the underlying mechanisms transforming slow immature MSO neurons into temporally precise adult MSO neurons. / text

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