Switched-Mode Signal Processing: An Innovative Paradigm for High Performance Analog in Nanoscale CMOS

随着硅半导体技术（如CMOS）的不断扩展和电路只能在更小的电源电压下工作，高性能模拟接口的设计变得越来越困难。同时，对电路性能和功率效率的要求也越来越高。该程序旨在研究和演示切换模式信号处理范例。它允许近轨信号振荡和高效率的输出级运算放大器，同时非常线性。它进一步促进了切换模式和模拟或数字表示之间的信号转换。开关模式电路有望实现多种模拟功能的性能提升，包括放大器、滤波器和过采样模数转换器。所提出的信号表示和处理范例独特地利用了纳米级器件的优势，特别是其高开关速度，同时避免了与其有限的输出阻抗或电压容限以及由此导致的摆幅减小相关的挑战。它通过以非经典方式表示模拟信息，特别是通过以线性方式将表示从电压移到时域，进一步追求电路和架构探索的新途径。此外，切换域表示提供了从一个域到另一个域的无缝转换，这是一个阻碍其他基于时域表示进展的挑战。更广泛的影响模拟电路执行连接物理世界和信号处理和存储的数字世界的关键功能。纳米级数字系统的性能只有在完全集成的片上系统中才能获得同样高性能的模拟接口。从技术到医学，从通信到科学发现，这些设备是在许多具有广泛社会和科学影响的领域取得进步的关键使能技术。由于成本或稳健性的优势以及纳米级半导体技术中更大的数字信号处理能力的可用性，大多数应用程序已经迁移到以数字为中心的架构。这里研究的范式和电路显示了在多个学科的各种应用中产生影响的希望。研究包括理论、设计和实验工作，并设计了几个原理验证演示。研究生和本科生将获得在纳米级硅技术中高性能模拟接口电路设计的理论、基础、实践和实验方面的专业知识。这项研究的结果将通过出版物和讨论会传播，并将纳入研究生课程。

Intellectual MeritThe design of high performance analog interfaces is becoming progressively harder as silicon semiconductor technologies (like CMOS) keep scaling and circuits can only operate with smaller supply voltages. At the same time, demands on circuit performance and power efficiency are increasing. This program targets to research and demonstrate a switched-mode signal-processing paradigm. It allows close-to rail-to-rail signal swings and high efficiency for the output stages of operational amplifiers while being very linear. It further facilitates the easy translation of signals between switched mode, and analog or digital representations. Switched-mode circuits are expected to enable performance gains in a versatile set of analog functions including amplifiers, filters and oversampling analog-to-digital converters.The proposed signal representation and processing paradigm uniquely exploits the strengths of nanoscale devices, in particular their high switching speed, while avoiding the challenges associated with their limited output impedance or voltage tolerance and resulting swing reductions. It further pursues new avenues for circuit and architecture explorations by representing analog information in a non-classical way, in particular by moving the representation from the voltage to time domain in a linear manner. Additionally, switched-domain representation offers seamless conversion from one domain to the other, a challenge that has hindered progress for other time-domain based representations. Broader ImpactAnalog circuits perform the critical function of interfacing the physical world to the digital world of signal processing and storage. The performance of digital systems in nanoscale technologies can only be reaped with analog interface with equally high performance in fully integrated systems-on-a-chip. Such devices are a key enabling technology for advances in many areas with broad societal and scientific impact from technology to medicine, from communications to scientific discoveries. The majority of applications have migrated to digital-centric architectures, owing to the advantages of cost or robustness and the availability of significantly larger digital signal-processing capability in nanoscale semiconductor technologies. The paradigm and circuits researched here show promise for impact across a variety of applications in multiple disciplines. The research includes theoretical, design and experimental efforts for the design of several proof-of-principle demonstrators. Graduate and undergraduate students will gain expertise in theoretical, fundamental, practical and experimental aspects of the design of high-performance, analog interface circuits in nanoscale silicon technologies. The results of this research will be disseminated through publications and seminars and will be incorporated in graduate level courses.