A 40-nm CMOS wakeup timer employing a bang-bang digital-intensive frequency-locked loop for Internet-of-Things applications is presented. A self-biased ΣΔ digitally controlled oscillator (DCO) is locked to an RC time constant via a single-bit chopped comparator and a digital loop filter. Such highly digitized architecture fully exploits the advantages of advanced CMOS processes, thus enabling operation down to 0.7 V and a small area (0.07 mm 2 ). Most circuitry operates at 32× lower frequency than the DCO in order to reduce the total power consumption down to 181 nW. High frequency accuracy and a 10× enhancement of long-term stability is achieved by the adoption of chopping to reduce the effect of comparator offset and 1/f noise and by the use of ΣΔ modulation to improve the DCO resolution. The proposed timer achieves the best energy efficiency (0.43 pJ/cycle at 417 kHz) over prior art while keeping excellent on-par long-term stability (Allan deviation floor <;20 ppm) and temperature stability (106 ppm/°C).@en

This paper presents a wakeup timer in 40-nm CMOS for Internet-of-Things (IoT) applications based on a bang-bang Digital-intensive Frequency-Locked Loop (DFLL). A self-biased Σ Δ Digitally Controlled Oscillator (DCO) is locked to an RC time constant via a feedback loop consisting of a single-bit chopped comparator and a digital loop filter, thus maximizing the use of digital circuits while keeping only the RC network and the comparator as the sole analog blocks. Analysis and behavior level simulations of the DFLL have been carried out to guide the optimization of the long-term stability and frequency accuracy of the timer. High frequency accuracy and a 10× enhancement of long-term stability is achieved by the adoption of chopping to reduce the effect of comparator offset and 1/f noise and by the use of Σ Δ modulation to improve the DCO resolution. Such highly digitized architecture fully exploits the advantages of advanced CMOS processes, thus enabling operation down to 0.7 V and a small area (0.07 mm2). The proposed timer achieves the excellent energy efficiency (0.57 pJ/cycle at 417 kHz at 0.8-V supply) over prior art while keeping excellent on-par long-term stability (Allan deviation floor < 20 ppm) and temperature stability (33 ppm°Cat 0.8-V supply).@en