Low-Power Highly Robust Resistance-to-Period Converter.

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Analog Circuit Design
• Integrated Circuits

Background:

• Traditional Resistance-to-Period (R-T) converters often suffer from performance degradation due to variations in supply voltage and operating temperature.
• The necessity for complex circuitry and precise voltage references in existing designs increases power consumption and fabrication costs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present a novel R-T converter architecture that demonstrates high robustness against supply and temperature fluctuations.
• To eliminate the requirement for complex circuits and high-accuracy voltage references, thereby simplifying the design and reducing potential error sources.

Main Methods:

• The proposed R-T converter utilizes a ratiometric approach to achieve inherent robustness.
• A prototype was fabricated using a 0.18 μm CMOS process, operating with a single 1.8 V supply and without a dedicated stable voltage reference.

Main Results:

• Experimental validation confirmed the converter's robustness, showing a maximum ±1.5% output signal variation over a ±10% supply voltage range.
• The R-T converter maintained stable performance across a wide temperature range, from 3°C to 95°C.

Conclusions:

• The novel ratiometric R-T converter architecture offers a highly robust and simplified solution for converting resistance to period.
• The design effectively mitigates the impact of supply and temperature variations, making it suitable for applications where precision and stability are critical under varying environmental conditions.