Multiplexed thermal-diffusivity-based temperature sensors

Due to the precise lithography and highly pure silicon used in IC technology, thermal-diffusivity (TD) temperature sensors can achieve high accuracy without the need for trimming. TD sensors employ electrothermal filters (ETFs) to measure the thermal diffusivity of silicon, i.e. the rate at which heat diffuses through silicon, which is a well...

Integrated Temperature Sensors based on Heat Diffusion

This thesis describes the theory, design and implementation of a new class of integrated temperature sensors, based on heat diffusion. In such sensors, temperature is sensed by measuring the time it takes for heat to diffuse through silicon. An on-chip thermal delay can be determined by geometry and the thermal diffusivity of silicon, and since...

Thermal-Diffusivity-Based Frequency References in Standard CMOS

In recent years, a lot of research has been devoted to the realization of accurate integrated frequency references. A thermal-diffusivity-based (TD) frequency reference provides an alternative method of on-chip frequency generation in standard CMOS technology. A frequency-locked loop locks the output frequency of an oscillator to the accurate...

A Temperature-to-Digital Converter Based on an Optimized Electrothermal Filter

This paper describes the design of a CMOS temperature-to-digital converter (TDC). It operates by measuring the temperature-dependent phase shift of an electrothermal filter (ETF). Compared to previous work, this TDC employs an ETF whose layout has been optimized to minimize the thermal phase spread caused by lithographic inaccuracy. To minimize...

Interface Electronics for a CMOS Electrothermal Frequency-Locked-Loop