Design of a pipelined time-to-digital Converter (TDC) suitable for transducer array channel multiplexing

Many fields need high performance time measurements, including particle detection, time-resolved imaging, transducer array channel multiplexing and other time of-flight systems. These measurements are often performed by means of time-to-digital converters(TDCs), that for these applications, require high resolution, accuracy, and throughput. This...

A Wide Temperature Range Voltage Reference for Quantum Computing Applications

Quantum computers seem very promising in solving problems that are too large to be solved by classical computers that are available today. However, to generate reasonable amounts of computing power, many qubits will be required. Each of the qubits has to be individually controlled and needs to be kept at cryogenic temperatures. To allow for the...

A Compact Resistor-Based Temperature Sensor

Smart temperature sensors can be used for the temperature compensation of micro-electromechanical (MEMS) frequency references. From the different types of CMOS temperature sensors, resistor-based sensors are currently the most energy-efficient. However, compared with bipolar transistor (BJT)-based temperature sensors, resistors suffer from...

Real-Time 3D Characterization of Antenna Systems

The recent development of commercial phased array antennas for 5G at mm-wave frequencies (20 GHz to 60 GHz) introduces new challenges for radiation pattern characterization. Since these systems aim to employ active beamforming to steer the datastream to specific users, a single base station should be capable of deploying multiple beams...

Finding an application for an ultrasound probe tracking system and proving its suitability: Validation of a robotic arm for 3D reconstruction of human anatomical features with ultrasound stitching

Ultrasound imaging is a widely available and highly portable real-time, ionizing radiation-free imaging modality used as first-line in multiple areas. Conventionally, its use is focused on providing 2D imaging using ultrasound probes. However, with the introduction of matrix probes, the acquisition of 3D scans became possible enabling the...

High-speed Data Acquisition and Processing for Transcranial Functional Ultrasound Brain Imaging

Functional ultrasound is by now a well-established technique in the neuroscience community to measure brain activity. However, the transcranial application of functional ultrasound on humans, with the exception of the acoustic windows in the skull, remains a huge challenge because of the properties of the cranial bone the acoustic waves will...

A 10-mV-Startup-Voltage Thermoelectric Energy Harvesting System Based on a Piezoelectric Cold Starter

Traditional power batteries have been unable to meet the requirements of wireless sensor network (WSN) applications which require battery lifetime and no battery replacement. So, harvesting ambient energy and converting it into electrical energy to power wireless sensors has become an alternative to the traditional power sources. Harvesting...

Design of a Cryo-CMOS Smart Temperature Sensor

Quantum computers exploit the quantum behavior of quantum bits (qubits) that are typically operated at cryogenic temperature. Qubits require an electronic control interface. Nowadays, such classical electronic controllers use bulky instruments operated far fromthe qubits outside the cryostat. To run practical quantum algorithms, thousands to...

Cold Start for energy harvester with piezo transducer

An Energy-Efficient High-Voltage Pulser for 2D Ultrasound Phased-Array Transmitters

Ultrasound (US) neuromodulation is a widely-used technique in the field of neuroscience and medical therapy that uses ultrasound waves to non-invasively modulate neural activity. The miniaturization of modern ultrasonic systems has an intimate relation with system power consumption. As the advancement of Integrated Circuits (ICs) represents a...

Artifact-Free Neurostimulator with Arbitrary Waveform Generation for High-Channel, High-Density Bidirectional Neural Interfaces

To achieve greater specificity in neurostimulation, bidirectional neural interfaces are required to verify the recorded neural response after stimulation. The specific neural interface targeted in this thesis is the epiretinal implant. Due to the heterogeneity of the retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), high-fidelity vision is only possible when all...