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Special Issue "Design of Mixed Analog/Digital Circuits, Volume 2"

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A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Circuit and Signal Processing".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2024 | Viewed by 4218

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. João Paulo Pereira do Carmo

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Guest Editor

São Carlos School of Engineering (EESC), Department of Electrical Engineering (SEL), University of São Paulo (USP), São Carlos 13566-590, Brazil
Interests: analog and digital integrated circuits; micromachining and micro/nanofabrication technologies for mixed-mode/RF systems; solid-state integrated sensors; microactuators and microsystems; micro/nanodevices for industrial and biomedical applications; wireless systems for sensors and actuators; optical sensors and actuators; material technology for microsystems; microprocessor/microcomputer-based instrumentation and data-acquisition systems
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Dr. Manuel Fernando Silva

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Guest Editor

CMEMS, University of Minho, 4804-533 Guimarães, Portugal
Interests: robotics; modelling; simulation; control

Dr. Graça Minas

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Guest Editor

Department of Industrial Electronics, University of Minho, Campus de Azurém, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal
Interests: lab-on-a-chip; on-chip integration of electronic circuits; optical filters; biosensors; organ-on-a-chip; biomedical microdevices
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since the invention of the transistor in 1948, the industry of semiconductors has grown extensively. The existence of a modern world without electronic devices is unthinkable. According to IC Insights, a leading semiconductor market research company, the value of the 10 semiconductor sale leaders (including the foundries) in the first quarter of 2020 was about USD 71 billion. This marks an increase from the 20 semiconductor sales leaders’ performances in the same quarter of 2016 (USD 62.4 billion), representing a growth of 4.47% per year. This confirms that the industry of semiconductors is still very dynamic, offering both new technologies and new devices for new applications.

Every day, new contributions of digital and analog circuits are published worldwide. For example, digital circuits are applied to FFT processors, digital signal processors, machine states, digital controllers, communication encoders/decoders, and random number generators. Additionally, analog circuits have found applications in data converters, amplifiers, filters, and multiplexers. For each type of circuit, the demand for energy-efficient solutions is more important in the context of mobile and autonomous devices in order to maximize the useful life of batteries.

This Special Issue invites new works, reviews, and innovative applications of mixed analog/digital circuits. Applications based on heterogeneous integration are also welcomed.

Dr. João Paulo Pereira do Carmo
Dr. Manuel Fernando Silva
Dr. Graça Minas
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2200 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

mixed analog/digital circuits design
optimization
applications
heterogeneous integration

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

Python Framework for Modular and Parametric SPICE Netlists Generation

Sergio Vinagrero Gutiérrez

Giorgio Di Natale

and

Elena-Ioana Vatajelu

Electronics 2023, 12(18), 3970; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12183970 - 20 Sep 2023

Viewed by 166

Abstract

Due to the complex specifications of current electronic systems, design decisions need to be explored automatically. However, the exploration process is a complex task given the plethora of design choices such as the selection of components, number of components, operating modes of each of the components, connections between the components and variety of ways in which the same functionality can be implemented. To tackle these issues, scripts are used to generate designs based on high-level abstract constructions. Still, this approach is usually ad hoc and platform dependent, making the whole procedure hardly reusable, scalable and versatile. We propose a generic, open-source framework tackling rapid design exploration for the generation of modular and parametric electronic designs that is able to work on any major simulator. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design of Mixed Analog/Digital Circuits, Volume 2)

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Figure 1

Open AccessArticle

Design of Self-Calibration Comparator for 12-Bit SAR ADCs

and

Electronics 2023, 12(10), 2277; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics12102277 - 18 May 2023

Viewed by 1138

Abstract

A novel self-calibration comparator for a 12-bit 2.5 MSPS successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter (SAR ADC) applied in a touch microcontroller unit (MCU) with small area, high precision, fast response speed, and low-voltage detection is proposed in this paper. A combination of input/output offset storage (IOS/OOS) and an offset trimming circuit was employed to reduce the offset of the cascade preamplifier and the operational transconductance amplifier (OTA), a novel offset trimming circuit with a 5-bit digital controller was designed to further reduce the residual offset voltage, and an improved self-calibration technology was also implemented to compensate the conversion error in SAR ADC system to a minimum. Simulation and measured results show that the input-referred offset calibrating range is ±9.15 mV at 0.61 mV/step, the low-voltage detection of SAR ADC is realized by compensating the conversion error to a minimum, and the effective number of bits (ENOB) and figure of merit (FoM) at 5 V supply and 2.5 M/s rate in the 12-bit SAR ADC with a 95 nm CMOS are 11.33 bits and 726.6 fJ/conversion-step, respectively. The proposed self-calibration comparator applied in the SAR ADC system can automatically eliminate the offset voltage caused by nonidealities and meet the requirements of the touch MCU. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design of Mixed Analog/Digital Circuits, Volume 2)

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Figure 1

Open AccessArticle

A Low-Power, Fully Integrated SC DC–DC Step-Up Converter with Phase-Reduced Soft-Charging Technique for Fully Implantable Neural Interfaces

Sangmin Song

Minsung Kim

and

Sung-Yun Park

Electronics 2022, 11(22), 3659; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11223659 - 09 Nov 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1549

Abstract

We present a high-power conversion efficiency (PCE) on-chip switched-capacitor (SC) DC–DC step-up converter for a fully implantable neural interface operating with less than a few tens µW from energy harvesting. To improve the PCE in such light loads and wide variations of voltage-conversion ratio (VCR), which is a typical scenario for ultra-low-power fully implantable systems depending on energy harvesting, a phase-reduced soft-charging technique has been implemented in a step-up converter, thereby achieving very low VCR-sensitive PCE variation compared with other state-of-the-art works. The proposed DC–DC converter has been fabricated in a standard 180 nm CMOS 1P6M process. It exhibits high PCE (~80%) for wide input and output ranges from 0.5 V to 1.2 V and from 1.2 V to 1.8 V, respectively, with switching frequencies of 0.3–2 MHz, achieving a peak efficiency of 82.6% at 54 µW loads. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design of Mixed Analog/Digital Circuits, Volume 2)

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Figure 1

Open AccessArticle

A Comparison of Off-Chip Differential and LC Input Matching Baluns in a Wideband and Low-Power RF-to-BB Current-Reuse Receiver Front-End

Arash Abbasi

and

Frederic Nabki

Electronics 2022, 11(21), 3527; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics11213527 - 29 Oct 2022

Viewed by 962

Abstract

A wideband and low-power RF-to-baseband (BB) current-reuse receiver (CRR) front-end is proposed, and its performance is verified using two matching networks, one with an LC balun and on-chip biasing inductor, CRR1, and another with a differential balun and without on-chip biasing inductor, CRR2, requiring less area. The transimpedance amplifier (TIA) and low-noise transconductance amplifier (LNTA) share the bias current from a single supply to reduce power consumption. It employs both an active-inductor (AI) and a

1 / f

noise-cancellation technique to improve the NF and RF bandwidth performance. A passive mixer is utilized for RF to BB conversion, which does not require any DC power and voltage headroom. Both CRR1 and CRR2 are fabricated in TSMC

130 n m

CMOS technology on a single die and packaged using a QFN48. CRR1 occupies an active area of 0.54

{mm}^{2}

. From 1 to

1.7

G

Hz

, it achieves a conversion gain of

41.5

d

B

, a double-sideband (DSB) NF of

6.5

d

B

S_{11} <

- 10

d

B

, and an IIP3 of

- 28.2

d

Bm

, while the local-oscillator (LO) frequency is at

1.3

G

Hz

. CRR2 occupies an active area of 0.025

{mm}^{2}

. From 0.2 to 1

G

Hz

, it achieves an average conversion gain of 37

d

B

, an average DSB NF of 8

d

B

, and an IIP3 of

- 21.5

d

Bm

while the LO frequency is at

0.7

G

Hz

. Both CRR1 and CRR2 consume

1.66

m A

from a

1.2

V

supply voltage. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Design of Mixed Analog/Digital Circuits, Volume 2)

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Special Issue "Design of Mixed Analog/Digital Circuits, Volume 2"

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