Engineering Commons^™

Advancements In The Solid-State Impact-Ionization Multiplier (Sim) Through Theory, Simulation And Design, Michael S. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation outlines the study and development of a Solid-state Impact-ionization Multiplier (SIM). The SIM is a stand-alone current amplifier designed with optical detection systems in mind. The SIM amplifies signals utilizing impact ionization as a source of gain. The SIM is fabricated on silicon in order to take advantage of its favorable impact ionization coefficients. Utilizing silicon in impact ionization based gain devices makes low noise and high gains attainable. Because it is a stand-alone device, it can be wired to an arbitrary current source making it capable of receiving an input from photodiodes of any material. This makes …

A High-Gain, Low-Power Cmos Operational Amplifier Using Composite Cascode Stage In The Subthreshold Region, Rishi Pratap Singh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis demonstrates that the composite cascode differential stage, operating in the subthreshold region, can form the basis of a high gain (113 dB) and low-power op amp (28.1 µW). The circuit can be fabricated without adding a compensation capacitance. The advantages of this architecture include high voltage gain, low bandwidth, low harmonic distortion, low quiescent current and power, and small chip area. These advantages suggest that this design might be well-suited for biomedical applications where low power, low noise bio-signal amplifiers capable of amplifying signals in the millihertz-to-kilohertz range is required.

Design Method For Optimized Wideband Iterative Differential Amplifier In Mos Technology, Steven L. Minch

Theses and Dissertations

Wideband amplifiers are an important part of analog design, and much effort has been expended in improving them. A popular implementation of a wideband amplifier is to use one or two stages with high gain in one or both stages. An alternative to this method is presented in this work, developed for Metal Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) amplifiers. The new approach, building on previous work in bipolar technology, uses multiple differential MOS stages to achieve similar gain requirements to other wideband amplifiers. It is shown that multiple stages with low gain, if implemented according to the present design method, can lead …

Low-Voltage Analog Cmos Architectures And Design Methods, Kent Downing Layton

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops design methods and architectures which allow analog circuits to operate at VT + 2Vds,sat, the minimum supply for CMOS circuits with all transistors in the active region where Vds,sat is the drain to source saturation voltage of a MOS transistor. Techniques which meet this criteria for rail-to-rail input stages, gain enhancement stages, and output stages are discussed and developed. These techniques are used to design four fully-differential rail-to-rail amplifiers. The highest gain is shown to be attained using a drain voltage equalization (DVE) or active-bootstrapping technique which produces more than 100dB of gain in a two stage …

Design And Analysis Of Charge-Transfer Amplifiers For Low-Power Analog-To-Digital Converter Applications, William Joel Marble

Theses and Dissertations

The demand for low-power A/D conversion techniques has motivated the exploration of charge-transfer amplifiers (CTAs) to construct efficient, precise voltage comparators. Despite notable advantages over classical, continuous-time architectures, little is understood about the dynamic behavior of CTAs or their utility in precision A/D converters. Accordingly, this dissertation presents several advancements related to the design and analysis of charge-transfer amplifiers for low-power data conversion.

First, an analysis methodology is proposed which leads to a deterministic model of the voltage transfer function. The model is generalized to any timing scheme and can be extended to account for nonlinear threshold modulation. The model …