A Dynamically Reconfigurable Recursive Switched-Capacitor DC-DC Converter with Adaptive Load Ability Enhancement

Multiple voltage conversion ratio (VCR) recursive switched-capacitor (SC) dc-dc converters, based on several basic 2:1 converters, are widely used for on-chip power supplies due to their flexible VCRs for higher energy efficiency. However, conventional multiple VCR SC converters usually have one or more 2:1 converters unused for some VCRs,...

A 16 MHz CMOS RC Frequency Reference With ±90 ppm Inaccuracy From -45 °C to 85 °C

This article presents a 16-MHz RC frequency reference implemented in a standard 180-nm CMOS process. It consists of a frequency-locked loop (FLL) in which the output frequency of a digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) is locked to the frequency-phase characteristic of a Wien bridge RC filter. Since it is made from on-chip resistors and...

On the Effect of Clock Frequency on Voltage and Electromagnetic Fault Injection

We investigate the influence of clock frequency on the success rate of a fault injection attack. In particular, we examine the success rate of voltage and electromagnetic fault attacks for varying clock frequencies. Using three different tests that cover different components of a System-on-Chip, we perform fault injection while its CPU...

A Crystal-Less Clock Generation Technique for Battery-Free Wireless Systems

The size of wireless systems is required to be reduced in many applications, such as ultra-low-power sensor nodes and wearable/implantable devices, where battery and crystal are the two main bottlenecks in system miniaturization. In recent years, battery-free radios based on wireless power transfer (WPT) have shown great potential in...

A BJT-Based Temperature-to-Digital Converter With a 0.25 C 3 $\sigma$ -Inaccuracy From-40 C to 180 C Using Heater-Assisted Voltage Calibration

This article presents a BJT-based temperature-to-digital-converter (TDC) that achieves ±0.25 °C 3 sigma -inaccuracy from -40 °C to +180 °C after a heater-assisted voltage calibration (HA-VCAL). Its switched-capacitor (SC) ADC employs two sampling capacitors and, thus, the minimum number of critical sampling switches, which minimizes the...

An On-Chip Self-Characterization of a Digital-to-Time Converter by Embedding it in a First-Order ΔΣ Loop

To characterize an on-chip programmable delay in a low-cost and high-resolution manner, a built-in self-test based on a first-order ΔΣ time-to-digital converter with self-calibration is proposed and implemented in TSMC 28-nm CMOS. The system is self-contained, and only one digital clock is needed for the measurements. A...

Efficiency and Bandwidth Enhancement of On-Chip Antennas by Using Connected Arrays and Artificial Dielectrics

On-chip antennas operating in the THz frequency range are characterized by narrow bandwidth and poor radiation efficiency. This is because they are electrically very close to the ground plane that is used to shield the antenna from the lossy substrate. In this work we propose a novel approach to increase the efficiency and the bandwidth of...