A CMOS Programmable Fourth-Order Butterworth Active-RC Low-Pass Filter

A High-Accuracy RC Time Constant Auto-Tuning Scheme for Integrated Continuous-Time Filters

The reliability of the resistor-capacitor (RC) time constant of a continuous-time (CT) filter has long been an obstacle with integrated circuits. Due to process and temperature variations in complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology, the absolute value of the RC time constant may vary over ±50%, which is a big issue for many integrated continuous-time analog circuits. This study proposes an on-chip RC time constant auto-tuning scheme. The proposed scheme is based on the discrete master-slave auto-tuning concept. Considering the limitations in conventional works, a higher tuning accuracy is achieved by adopting two techniques: firstly, parasitic capacitance cancelation is proposed to eliminate the effects caused by parasitic capacitance; secondly, symmetric comparison is introduced to minimize the influence of the DC offset of the comparator. A successive approximation procedure is applied to improve the tuning speed. The proposed auto-tuning scheme has been validated in 55 nm CMOS technology with a fourth-order active-RC low-pass filter under PVT variations and 60 mV input offset voltage. The average tuning error is 2.21%, and the maximum error is 3.67%. The tuning error of the proposed scheme is considerably lower than the conventional scheme.

A Recognition Method for Road Hypnosis Based on Physiological Characteristics

Road hypnosis is a state which is easy to appear frequently in monotonous scenes and has a great influence on traffic safety. The effective detection for road hypnosis can improve the intelligent vehicle. In this paper, the simulated experiment and vehicle experiment are designed and carried out to obtain the physiological characteristics data of road hypnosis. A road hypnosis recognition model based on physiological characteristics is proposed. Higher-order spectra are used to preprocess the electrocardiogram (ECG) and electromyography (EMG) data, which can be further fused by principal component analysis (PCA). The Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), Quadratic Discriminant Analysis (QDA), and K-Nearest Neighbor (KNN) models are constructed to identify road hypnosis. The proposed model has good identification performance on road hypnosis. It provides more alternative methods and technical support for real-time and accurate identification of road hypnosis. It is of great significance to improve the intelligence and active safety of intelligent vehicles.

A 1-V 7th-Order SC Low-Pass Filter for 77-GHz Automotive Radar in 28-nm FD-SOI CMOS

This paper presents a switched capacitor low-pass filter in a 28-nm fully depleted silicon on insulator CMOS technology for 77-GHz automotive radar applications. It is operated at a power supply as low as 1 V and guarantees 5-dB in-band voltage gain while providing out-of-band attenuation higher than 36 dB and a programmable passband up to 30 MHz. A double sampling technique is adopted, which allows high operating frequency to be achieved while saving power. Moreover, low-voltage biasing and common-mode feedback circuits are exploited to guarantee an almost rail-to-rail output voltage swing. The proposed filter provides an output 1-dB compression point as high as 8.7 dBm with a power consumption of 9 mW. To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first SC-based implementation of a low pass filter for automotive radar applications.

High-Input Impedance Voltage-Mode Multifunction Filter

This paper proposes a high-input impedance voltage-mode (VM) multifunction biquad filter which employs three current-feedback amplifiers (CFAs), three resistors, and two grounded capacitors. The proposed VM multifunction biquad filter has single-input and triple-output and can realize non-inverting low-pass (NLP), inverting band-pass (IBP), and non-inverting band-stop (NBS) voltage responses at the same time without increasing component selection. The proposed VM multifunction biquad filter enjoys the orthogonal tunability of angular frequency and quality factor and also provides the advantage of using only two grounded capacitors, high-input impedance and low active/passive sensitivity. The performance of the proposed VM multifunction biquad filter is verified through its hardware implementation and OrCAD PSpice simulation based on AD844-type CFAs. The circuit analysis, sensitivity analysis, and NLP, IBP, and NBS voltage responses are also shown in this paper. The paper presents a method to effectively reduce the active and passive components, maintain good circuit performance, and reduce circuit costs.

Versatile Voltage-Mode Biquadratic Filter and Quadrature Oscillator Using Four OTAs and Two Grounded Capacitors

This article presents a versatile voltage-mode (VM) biquad filter with independently electronic tunability. The proposed structure using one dual-output operational transconductance amplifier, three single-output operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and two grounded capacitors was explored to derive a new VM quadrature oscillator with the independent control of the oscillation frequency and the oscillation condition. The proposed versatile VM biquad filter achieves nearly all of the main advantages: (i) simultaneous realizations of band-reject, band-pass, and low-pass from the same architecture, (ii) multiple-input and multiple-output functions, (iii) independent electronic adjustability of quality factor and resonant angular frequency, (iv) no resistor needed, (v) all input terminals with cascade functions, (vi) no additional inverting amplifier for input signals, (vii) using only grounded capacitors, and (viii) easy to implement a VM quadrature oscillator with independent electronically controlled oscillation frequency and oscillation condition. The proposed versatile VM biquad filter employs only four OTAs and two grounded capacitors. The active components of the proposed VM biquad filter are one less than that of recent reports. The proposed circuit also brings versatility and simplicity to the design of VM biquad filters and VM quadrature oscillators. Filters and oscillators with less active and passive components have the advantages of low cost, low power dissipation, low circuit complexity, and low noise. Commercially available integrated circuit LT1228 and discrete components can be used to implement the proposed OTA-based circuits. The simulation and experiment results validated the theoretical analysis.

Low-Power CMOS Complex Bandpass Filter with Passband Flatness Tunability

We present a low-power CMOS active-resistance-capacitance (active-RC) complex bandpass filter (BPF) with tunable gain, bandwidth, center frequency, quality factor, and passband flatness for Bluetooth applications. A transfer function analysis for a cross-coupled Tow-Thomas biquad structure is presented to prove that the flatness profile of the passband gain can be effectively controlled by independently tuning two cross-coupling resistors. The proposed biquad-based complex BPF was employed to realize a fourth-order baseband analog processor for a low intermediate frequency (low-IF) RF receiver. The baseband analog processor was composed of two complex biquad filters and three first-order variable-gain amplifiers. It was fabricated in a 65-nm RF CMOS and achieved wide tuning capabilities, such as a gain of −15.6 to 50.6 dB, a bandwidth of 1.4–3.9 MHz, a center frequency of 1.5–4.1 MHz, and a passband flatness of −1 to 1 dB. It also achieved an image rejection ratio of 40.3–53.3 dB across the entire gain tuning range. It consumed 1.4 mA from a 1 V supply and occupied an area of 0.19 mm2 on the silicon substrate. The implementation results prove that the proposed complex BPF was able to effectively enhance the signal processing performances through the flexible and wide-range tunability of the passband flatness, as well as that of the gain, bandwidth, center frequency, and quality factor.