A programmable second order oversampling CMOS sigma-delta analog-to-digital converter for low-power sensor interface electronics

A programmable second order oversampling sigma-delta analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is designed and fabricated in 0.5 μm n-well CMOS process for low-power interface electronics of a sensor node in wireless sensor networks. The sigma-delta ADC can be programmed to operate at three different oversampling ratios of 16, 32, and 64 to give three different resolutions of 9, 12 and 14 bits, respectively which impact the power consumption of the sensor module. The major part of power is consumed in the decimator of the ADC by the integrators which operate at the highest sampling rate. Hence, an alternate design is introduced in the integrator stages by inserting sign extension coder circuits and reusing the same integrators for different resolutions and oversampling ratios. The programmable ADC can be interfaced with on or off-chip nanosensors for detection of traces of toxic gases and chemicals.