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A 0.8-V 816-nW delta–sigma modulator for low-power biomedical applications

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Abstract

This letter discusses the implementation of a low-voltage, low-power delta–sigma modulator as a sensing stage for biomedical applications. A distributed feed-forward structure and bulk-driven operational transconductance amplifier are used in order to achieve efficient operation at a supply voltage of 0.8 V. Instead of conventional low-voltage amplifier architectures, our design uses folded-cascode amplifiers, although they are not used in most low-voltage circuits. A wide input swing is achieved by using the bulk-driven approach, and the drawback of the limited voltage swing of the cascoded output stage is overcome by the distributed feed-forward modulator. The designed modulator has a dynamic range of 49 dB at a 0.8-V supply voltage and consumes only 816 nW of power for the 250-Hz bandwidth. The core chip size of the modulator is 1000 μm × 500 μm by using the 0.18-μm standard CMOS process.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation (KOSEF) grant funded by a Korean government (MEST) (No. R01-2008-000-11056-0).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Hanyang University, GyeongGi-Do, 426-791, Republic of Korea

    Hyungdong Roh, Hyuntae Lee, Youngkil Choi & Jeongjin Roh

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  1. Hyungdong Roh
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  2. Hyuntae Lee
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  3. Youngkil Choi
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  4. Jeongjin Roh
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Correspondence to Jeongjin Roh.

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Roh, H., Lee, H., Choi, Y. et al. A 0.8-V 816-nW delta–sigma modulator for low-power biomedical applications. Analog Integr Circ Sig Process 63, 101–106 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-009-9390-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10470-009-9390-y

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