SBIR Phase I:High Performance Zero-Crossing Based A/D Converter Architectures

SBIR第一阶段研究计划将研究高性能模数（A/D）转换器的新电路架构，其功耗可能比传统架构低一个数量级以上，硅面积也比传统架构小得多。新的架构是基于过零检测器。与传统的运放电路一样，基于过零的电路利用了基于虚拟地的信号处理。因此，它们提供相同的功能和稳健性，并与大多数基于运算放大器的电路架构兼容。过零检波器用过零检波器的虚拟地检测代替运算放大器的虚拟地强制功能。基于过零检测器的电路以极低的功耗提供高速运行，尺寸很小，并且与标准的深亚微米互补金属氧化物半导体（CMOS）技术兼容。这项研究如果成功，将产生深远的影响，因为A/D转换器在电子系统中无处不在。功率消耗代表大约三十（30）倍的减少，从国家的艺术。它将提供基于深亚微米CMOS技术的高性能A/D转换器，从而利用其极低成本、高速性能、小尺寸、高集成度和低功耗数字电路。这些可能包括软件定义和认知无线电，便携式相控阵无线电以及许多其他可能性。对于军事应用，便携式相控阵雷达，电池供电的智能传感器（例如智能灰尘），微型机器人和小型无人飞机可以从所提出的电路的低功耗和小尺寸/重量/体积中受益。

This SBIR Phase I research proposal will investigate new circuit architectures for high performance Analog-to-Digital (A/D) converters with potentially more than an order of magnitude lower power consumption and much smaller silicon area than conventional architectures. The new architectures are based on zero-crossing detectors. The zero-crossing based circuits utilize the virtual-ground based signal processing as in traditional op-amp based circuits. Therefore, they provide the same functionality and robustness and are compatible with most op-amp based circuit architectures. The zero-crossing detectors replace the virtual ground forcing function of the op-amp with virtual ground detection by a zero-crossing detector. The zero-crossing detector based circuits provide high speed operation at extremely low power consumption, are tiny in size, and are compatible with standard deep submicron Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductors (CMOS) technologies. The proposed research, if successful, can have far reaching impact, because A/D converters are ubiquitous in electronics systems. The power consumption represents approximately thirty (30) fold reduction from the state-of-the art. It will provide high performance A/D converters built in deep submicron CMOS technologies thereby exploiting their very low cost, high-speed capability, tiny size, high level of integration, and low power digital circuits. These may include software-defined and cognitive radios, and portable phased array radios among many other possibilities. For military applications, Portable phased-array radars, battery-operated smart sensors (e.g. smart dust), micro-robots, and small unmanned aircrafts can benefit from the low power and tiny size/weight/volume of the proposed circuits.