We propose two kinds of 1.0 Gbps LVDS ( low voltage differential signaling ) transceivers for LCD ( liquid crystal display ) in this thesis. LVDS has become a popular choice for high-speed serial links in large-sized display units. Our designs are an I/O interface circuit for Gbps operation which is fully complied with the IEEE STD 1596.3 (LVDS). A step-down voltage regulator is employed to reject the noise coupled in the system power supply. In the first design of the transmitter, a CMFB (common mode feedback) circuitry is utilized to stabilize the common voltage in a pre-defined range. In the second design of the transmitter, we try to use a DC bias circuitry to stabilize output common mode voltage to further improve the stability of the common mode voltage. By contrast, a regenerative circuit which provides a positive feedback loop gain between the preamplifier and the output buffer in the receiver such that the received bit streams can be correctly restored

In this thesis, we use the no-capacitor feed-forward (NCFF) compensation scheme which employs a feed-forward path to obtain high gain, high frequency. We use CMFB circuit to adjust the common-mode output voltages and the bias circuit. The CMFB circuit makes the output accurately to the reference voltage. The circuit was designed and fabricated TSMC 0.35 £gm CMOS process. The dc gain is around 90dB and the cut-off frequency is 1GHz. The supply voltage is ¡Ó1.25V. The output voltage is smaller than 10mV.

Este trabalho apresenta estudos voltados ao teste de Amplificadores Diferenciais. No primeiro momento, por meio de simulações SPICE, falhas catastróficas são injetadas em dois Amplificadores Diferenciais, projetados para uma tecnologia CMOS de 0,5m com configurações complementares, a fim de comprovar a ocorrência de variações nas tensões DC dos nós do circuito sob teste à medida que há injeções de falhas no mesmo. Também se faz análises preliminares dos resultados para verificar a possibilidade de diagnosticar as falhas através de assinaturas compostas pela digitalização (em um bit) dos valores DC dos nós do circuito sob teste. Posteriormente, é desenvolvida uma metodologia de teste simples e com baixo custo, aplicável a Amplificadores Totalmente Diferenciais. Considerando a necessidade do Circuito de Realimentação de Modo Comum para manter o controle do modo comum das saídas, é proposta a reutilização deste circuito como verificador, possibilitando a observação de falhas ocorridas tanto no Amplificador quanto no próprio bloco de CMFB. Falhas catastróficas e paramétricas são injetadas, por simulação, em dois amplificadores totalmente diferenciais, um projetado em 180nm e outro em 130nm. Testes DC e transientes são realizados e a cobertura de falhas é avaliada. Os resultados das simulações apontam boa cobertura de falhas, enquanto apenas os sinais de realimentação de modo comum precisam ser monitorados. Dessa forma é proposta uma estratégia de teste que apresenta um baixo custo e uma baixa sobrecarga de área do circuito. / This work presents a study related to the testing of Differential Amplifiers. Firstly, by means of SPICE simulations, catastrophic faults are injected in two complementary Differential Amplifiers, designed considering a 0,5μm CMOS technology, in order to prove the concept of testing the circuit by checking the occurrence of variations in the DC voltage of the circuit internal nodes due to the injected faults. The possibility of diagnosing faults using a digitized representation of the DC values of the observed nodes of the circuit was also investigated. Then, a simple and cost-effective test methodology for Fully Differential Amplifiers (FDA) is proposed. Considering the need of the common mode feedback circuit to maintain the control of the common mode output voltage, it is proposed to re-use this circuit as a checker, allowing the observation of faults in both the amplifier itself and the CMFB block. Catastrophic and parametric faults are injected in two FDAs, designed in 180nm and 130nm technology respectively. DC and transient tests are performed and the fault coverage is evaluated. The simulation results indicate high fault coverage, while only the signals from the common mode feedback need to be monitored. This way a low cost and low overhead test methodology is proposed.

Este trabalho apresenta estudos voltados ao teste de Amplificadores Diferenciais. No primeiro momento, por meio de simulações SPICE, falhas catastróficas são injetadas em dois Amplificadores Diferenciais, projetados para uma tecnologia CMOS de 0,5m com configurações complementares, a fim de comprovar a ocorrência de variações nas tensões DC dos nós do circuito sob teste à medida que há injeções de falhas no mesmo. Também se faz análises preliminares dos resultados para verificar a possibilidade de diagnosticar as falhas através de assinaturas compostas pela digitalização (em um bit) dos valores DC dos nós do circuito sob teste. Posteriormente, é desenvolvida uma metodologia de teste simples e com baixo custo, aplicável a Amplificadores Totalmente Diferenciais. Considerando a necessidade do Circuito de Realimentação de Modo Comum para manter o controle do modo comum das saídas, é proposta a reutilização deste circuito como verificador, possibilitando a observação de falhas ocorridas tanto no Amplificador quanto no próprio bloco de CMFB. Falhas catastróficas e paramétricas são injetadas, por simulação, em dois amplificadores totalmente diferenciais, um projetado em 180nm e outro em 130nm. Testes DC e transientes são realizados e a cobertura de falhas é avaliada. Os resultados das simulações apontam boa cobertura de falhas, enquanto apenas os sinais de realimentação de modo comum precisam ser monitorados. Dessa forma é proposta uma estratégia de teste que apresenta um baixo custo e uma baixa sobrecarga de área do circuito. / This work presents a study related to the testing of Differential Amplifiers. Firstly, by means of SPICE simulations, catastrophic faults are injected in two complementary Differential Amplifiers, designed considering a 0,5μm CMOS technology, in order to prove the concept of testing the circuit by checking the occurrence of variations in the DC voltage of the circuit internal nodes due to the injected faults. The possibility of diagnosing faults using a digitized representation of the DC values of the observed nodes of the circuit was also investigated. Then, a simple and cost-effective test methodology for Fully Differential Amplifiers (FDA) is proposed. Considering the need of the common mode feedback circuit to maintain the control of the common mode output voltage, it is proposed to re-use this circuit as a checker, allowing the observation of faults in both the amplifier itself and the CMFB block. Catastrophic and parametric faults are injected in two FDAs, designed in 180nm and 130nm technology respectively. DC and transient tests are performed and the fault coverage is evaluated. The simulation results indicate high fault coverage, while only the signals from the common mode feedback need to be monitored. This way a low cost and low overhead test methodology is proposed.

Este trabalho apresenta estudos voltados ao teste de Amplificadores Diferenciais. No primeiro momento, por meio de simulações SPICE, falhas catastróficas são injetadas em dois Amplificadores Diferenciais, projetados para uma tecnologia CMOS de 0,5m com configurações complementares, a fim de comprovar a ocorrência de variações nas tensões DC dos nós do circuito sob teste à medida que há injeções de falhas no mesmo. Também se faz análises preliminares dos resultados para verificar a possibilidade de diagnosticar as falhas através de assinaturas compostas pela digitalização (em um bit) dos valores DC dos nós do circuito sob teste. Posteriormente, é desenvolvida uma metodologia de teste simples e com baixo custo, aplicável a Amplificadores Totalmente Diferenciais. Considerando a necessidade do Circuito de Realimentação de Modo Comum para manter o controle do modo comum das saídas, é proposta a reutilização deste circuito como verificador, possibilitando a observação de falhas ocorridas tanto no Amplificador quanto no próprio bloco de CMFB. Falhas catastróficas e paramétricas são injetadas, por simulação, em dois amplificadores totalmente diferenciais, um projetado em 180nm e outro em 130nm. Testes DC e transientes são realizados e a cobertura de falhas é avaliada. Os resultados das simulações apontam boa cobertura de falhas, enquanto apenas os sinais de realimentação de modo comum precisam ser monitorados. Dessa forma é proposta uma estratégia de teste que apresenta um baixo custo e uma baixa sobrecarga de área do circuito. / This work presents a study related to the testing of Differential Amplifiers. Firstly, by means of SPICE simulations, catastrophic faults are injected in two complementary Differential Amplifiers, designed considering a 0,5μm CMOS technology, in order to prove the concept of testing the circuit by checking the occurrence of variations in the DC voltage of the circuit internal nodes due to the injected faults. The possibility of diagnosing faults using a digitized representation of the DC values of the observed nodes of the circuit was also investigated. Then, a simple and cost-effective test methodology for Fully Differential Amplifiers (FDA) is proposed. Considering the need of the common mode feedback circuit to maintain the control of the common mode output voltage, it is proposed to re-use this circuit as a checker, allowing the observation of faults in both the amplifier itself and the CMFB block. Catastrophic and parametric faults are injected in two FDAs, designed in 180nm and 130nm technology respectively. DC and transient tests are performed and the fault coverage is evaluated. The simulation results indicate high fault coverage, while only the signals from the common mode feedback need to be monitored. This way a low cost and low overhead test methodology is proposed.

There are growing industrial demands for low-voltage supply and low-power consumption circuits and systems. This is especially true for very high integration level and very large scale integrated (VLSI) mixed-signal chips and system-on-a-chip. It is mainly due to the limited power dissipation within a small area and the costs related to the packaging and thermal management. In this research work, two low-voltage, low-power integrated circuits used for data communication systems are introduced. The first one is a high performance continuous-time linear phase filter with automatic frequency tuning. The filter can be used in hard disk driver systems and wired communication systems such as 1000Base-T transceivers. A pseudo-differential operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) based on transistors operating in triode region is used to achieve a large linear signal swing with low-voltage supplies. A common-mode (CM) control circuit that combines common-mode feedback (CMFB), common-mode feedforward (CMFF), and adaptive-bias has been proposed. With a 2.3V single supply, the filter’s total harmonic distortion is less than –44dB for a 2VPP differential input, which is due to the well controlled CM behavior. The ratio of the root mean square value of the ac signal to the power supply voltage is around 31%, which is much better than previous realizations. The second integrated circuit includes two LVDS drivers used for high-speed point-to-point links. By removing the stacked switches used in the conventional structures, both LVDS drivers can operate with ultra low-voltage supplies. Although the Double Current Sources (DCS) LVDS driver draws twice minimum static current as required by the signal swing, it is quite simple and achieves very high speed operation. The Switchable Current Sources (SCS) LVDS driver, by dynamically switching the current sources, draws minimum static current and reduces the power consumption by 60% compared to the previously reported LVDS drivers. Both LVDS drivers are compliant to the standards and operate at data rates up to gigabits-per-second.

This dissertation presents design and implementation of continuous time analog filters for two specific applications: wideband analog systems such as disk drive channel and low-power wireless applications. Specific focus has been techniques that reduce the power requirements of the overall system either through improvement in architecture or efficiency of the analog building blocks. The first problem that this dissertation addresses is the implementation of wideband filters with high equalization gain. An efficient architecture that realizes equalization zeros by combining available transfer functions associated with a biquadratic cell is proposed. A 330MHz, 5th order Gm-C lowpass Butterworth filter with 24dB boost is designed using the proposed architecture. The prototype fabricated in standard 0.35um CMOS process shows -41dB of IM3 for 250mV peak to peak swing with 8.6mW/pole of power dissipation. Also, an LC prototype implemented using similar architecture is discussed in brief. It is shown that, for practical range of frequency and SNR, LC based design is more power efficient than a Gm-C one, though at the cost of much larger area. Secondly, a complementary current mirror based building block is proposed, which pushes the limits imposed by conventional transconductors on the powerefficiency of Gm-C filters. Signal processing through complementary devices provides good linearity and Gm/Id efficiency and is shown to improve power efficiency by nearly 7 times. A current-mode 4th order Butterworth filter is designed, in 0.13um UMC technology, using the proposed building. It provides 54.2dB IM3 and 55dB SNR in 1.3GHz bandwidth while consuming as low as 24mW of power. All CMOS filter realization occupies a relatively small area and is well suited for integration in deep submicron technologies. Thirdly, a 20MHz, 68dB dynamic range active RC filter is presented. This filter is designed for a ten bit continuous time sigma delta ADC architecture developed specifically for fine-line CMOS technologies. Inverter based amplification and a common mode feedback for such amplifiers are discussed. The filter consumes 5mW of power and occupies an area of 0.07 mm2.

There are growing industrial demands for low-voltage supply and low-power consumption circuits and systems. This is especially true for very high integration level and very large scale integrated (VLSI) mixed-signal chips and system-on-a-chip. It is mainly due to the limited power dissipation within a small area and the costs related to the packaging and thermal management. In this research work, two low-voltage, low-power integrated circuits used for data communication systems are introduced. The first one is a high performance continuous-time linear phase filter with automatic frequency tuning. The filter can be used in hard disk driver systems and wired communication systems such as 1000Base-T transceivers. A pseudo-differential operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) based on transistors operating in triode region is used to achieve a large linear signal swing with low-voltage supplies. A common-mode (CM) control circuit that combines common-mode feedback (CMFB), common-mode feedforward (CMFF), and adaptive-bias has been proposed. With a 2.3V single supply, the filter’s total harmonic distortion is less than –44dB for a 2VPP differential input, which is due to the well controlled CM behavior. The ratio of the root mean square value of the ac signal to the power supply voltage is around 31%, which is much better than previous realizations. The second integrated circuit includes two LVDS drivers used for high-speed point-to-point links. By removing the stacked switches used in the conventional structures, both LVDS drivers can operate with ultra low-voltage supplies. Although the Double Current Sources (DCS) LVDS driver draws twice minimum static current as required by the signal swing, it is quite simple and achieves very high speed operation. The Switchable Current Sources (SCS) LVDS driver, by dynamically switching the current sources, draws minimum static current and reduces the power consumption by 60% compared to the previously reported LVDS drivers. Both LVDS drivers are compliant to the standards and operate at data rates up to gigabits-per-second.

Vast attention has been paid to active continuous-time filters over the years. Thus as the cheap, readily available integrated circuit OpAmps replaced their discrete circuit versions, it became feasible to consider active-RC filter circuits using large numbers of OpAmps. Similarly the development of integrated operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) led to new filter configurations. This gave rise to OTA-C filters, using only active devices and capacitors, making it more suitable for integration. The demands on filter circuits have become ever more stringent as the world of electronics and communications has advanced. In addition, the continuing increase in the operating frequencies of modern circuits and systems increases the need for active filters that can perform at these higher frequencies; an area where the LC active filter emerges. What mainly limits the performance of an analog circuit are the non-idealities of the used building blocks and the circuit architecture. This research concentrates on the design issues of high frequency continuous-time integrated filters. Several novel circuit building blocks are introduced. A novel pseudo-differential fully balanced fully symmetric CMOS OTA architecture with inherent common-mode detection is proposed. Through judicious arrangement, the common-mode feedback circuit can be economically implemented. On the level of system architectures, a novel filter low-voltage 4th order RF bandpass filter structure based on emulation of two magnetically coupled resonators is presented. A unique feature of the proposed architecture is using electric coupling to emulate the effect of the coupled-inductors, thus providing bandwidth tuning with small passband ripple. As part of a direct conversion dual-mode 802.11b/Bluetooth receiver, a BiCMOS 5th order low-pass channel selection filter is designed. The filter operated from a single 2.5V supply and achieves a 76dB of out-of-band SFDR. A digital automatic tuning system is also implemented to account for process and temperature variations. As part of a Bluetooth transmitter, a low-power quadrature direct digital frequency synthesizer (DDFS) is presented. Piecewise linear approximation is used to avoid using a ROM look-up table to store the sine values in a conventional DDFS. Significant saving in power consumption, due to the elimination of the ROM, renders the design more suitable for portable wireless communication applications.

This master thesis describes the design of a track-and-hold (T&H) circuit with 10bit resolution, 80MS/s and 30MHz bandwidth. It is designed in a 0.18µm CMOS process with a supply voltage of 1.8 Volt. The circuit is supposed to work together with a 10bit pipelined analog to digital converter. A switched capacitor topology is used for the T&H circuit and the amplifier is a folded cascode OTA with regulated cascode. The switches used are of transmission gate type. The thesis presents the design decisions, design phase and the theory needed to understand the design decisions and the considerations in the design phase. The results are based on circuit level SPICE simulations in Cadence with foundry provided BSIM3 transistor models. They show that the circuit has 10bit resolution and 7.6mW power consumption, for the worst-case frequency of 30MHz. The requirements on the dynamic performance are all fulfilled, most of them with large margins.