A 2.0Vpp Input, 0.5V Supply Delta Amplifier with A-to-D Conversion

Recent progress in scaled CMOS technologies can enhance signal bandwidth and clock frequency of analog-digital mixed VLSIs. However, the inevitable reduction of supply voltage causes a signal voltage mismatch between a non-scaled analog chip and a scaled A-D mixed chip. To overcome this problem, we present a Delta-Amplifier (DeltAMP) which can handle larger signal amplitude than the supply voltage. DeltaAMP folds a delta signal of an input voltage within a window using a virtual ground amplifier, modulation switches and comparators. For reconstruction of the folded delta signal to the ordinal signal, Analog-Time-Digital conversion (ATD) was also proposed, in which pulse-width analog information obtained at the comparators in DeltAMP was converted to a digital signal by counting. A test chip of DeltAMP with ATD was designed and fabricated using a 90nm CMOS technology. A 2Vpp input voltage range and 50µW power consumption were achieved by the measurements with a 0.5V supply. High accuracy of 62dB SNR was obtained at signal bandwidth of 120kHz.