A 5-GHz LC VCO with digital AAC and AFBS for 2.4 GHz ZigBee transceiver applications

A 5 GHz LC VCO (voltage-controlled oscillator) with automatic amplitude control (AAC) and automatic frequency-band selection (AFBS) for 2.4 GHz ZigBee transceivers is presented. Instead of continuous feedback loop, an alternative amplitude calibration scheme is proposed in this paper to alleviate the deficiencies inherent in the conventional approach. It helps to keep the VCO at optimum amplitude to avoid saturation of the cross-coupled transistors and therefore stabilizes the phase noise performance over process, voltage and temperature variations. For the ZigBee application with 16 frequency channels, a coarse tuning loop is added in this work to implement the frequency-band selection using the AFBS mechanism. The VCO core and the digital AAC, AFBS modules have been fully integrated in a 2.4 GHz ZigBee transceiver which was fabricated in a 0.18 μm RF-CMOS technology. The current consumption is 4.7 mA at 4.85 GHz with 1.8 V power supply and a chip area of about 0.285 mm² is occupied. The VCO is capable of operating from 4.67 GHz to 5.18 GHz and the measured phase-noise level is –120 dBc/Hz at 1 MHz offset from a 4.85 GHz carrier. The tuning sensitivity K_VCO of the VCO is about 78 MHz/V with 0.9 V control voltage.     

A 10-bit 300-MS/s asynchronous SAR ADC with strategy of optimizing settling time for capacitive DAC in 65 nm CMOS

A 10-bit 300-MS/s asynchronous SAR ADC in 65 nm CMOS is presented in this paper. To achieve low power, binary-weighed capacitive DAC is employed without any digital correction or calibration. Consequently, settling time for the capacitive DAC would be a dominant limiting factor for the ADC operating speed. A novel architecture is proposed to optimize the settling time for the capacitive DAC, which depends merely on the on-resistance of switches and the capacitance of unit capacitor and irrelevant to the resolution. Therefore, high-speed high-resolution SAR ADC is possible. What is deserved to highlight is that the architecture improves the ADC performance at a fraction of the cost, with only some capacitors and control logic added. Post-layout simulation has been made for the SAR ADC. At a 1.2-V supply voltage and a sampling rate of 300 MS/s, it consumes 1.27 mW and achieves an SNDR of 60 dB, an SFDR of 67.5 dB, with the Nyquist input. The SAR ADC occupies a core area of 450×380 μm².     

A new CMOS differential current-mode AGC on the division operation based

A new CMOS differential current-mode AGC on the division operation based is presented. The operation principle consists in detection of both positive and negative envelopes of the differential input signal cycles, respectively. The output signal with constant magnitude is obtained by dividing the differential input signal to the difference between the positive and negative detected envelopes. The new current-mode architecture of the proposed AGC (composed only by an envelope detector and a divider stage) diminishes significantly the settling time, the circuit complexity and the power consumption. The circuit yields an input dynamic range of 15 dB and provides a constant magnitude output signal in the frequency range from 10 MHz to 70 MHz. The current consumption is 5 mA from a single 3.3 V supply voltage. The simulations performed in 0.13 µm CMOS process confirm the theoretically obtained results.     

All-digital controlled boost DC–DC converter with all-digital DLL-based calibration

Traditional digital controls mostly use digital–analog converters to convert input and output voltages into digital coding to achieve control. This paper proposes the use of two digital ramps with two different frequencies to replace a digital–analog converter. This approach can produce seven bit resolution for the DPMW signal. In addition, we use an all-digital DLL phase correction concept to further enhance the resolution of the DPWM signal by an additional three bits, resulting in 10-bit DPWM signal resolution. The proposed circuit uses 0.35 μm CMOS processes, with a core area of 0.987 mm², a system switching frequency of 500 KHz, an input voltage range of 3.3–4.2 V, and an output voltage range of 5 V. Output voltage measurement accuracy reaches 99%, while the system reaches efficiency of 91% with output loads of up to 500 mA.     

Design,development and reliability testing of a low power bridge-type micromachined hotplate

In this paper, the development and reliability of a platinum-based microheater with low power consumption are demonstrated. The microheater is fabricated on a thin SiO₂ bridge-type suspended membrane supported by four arms. The structure consists of a 0.6 μm-thick SiO₂ membrane of size 50 μm × 50 μm over which a platinum resistor is laid out. The simulation of the structure was carried out using MEMS-CAD Tool COVENTORWARE. The platinum resistor of 31.0 Ω is fabricated on SiO₂ membrane using lift-off technique. The bulk micromachining technique is used to create the suspended SiO₂ membrane. The temperature coefficient of resistance (TCR) of platinum used for temperature estimation of the hotplate is measured and found to be 2.2 × 10⁻³/°C. The test results indicate that the microhotplate consumes only 11.8 mW when heated up to 400 °C. For reliability testing, the hotplate is continuously operated at higher temperatures. It was found that at 404 °C, 508 °C and 595 °C, the microhotplate continuously operated up to 16.5 h, 4.3 h and 4 min respectively without degrading its performance. It can sustain at least 53 cycles pulse-mode of operation at 540 °C with ultra-low resistance and temperature drifts. The structure has maximum current capability of 19.06 mA and it can also sustain the ultrasonic vibration at least for 30 min without any damage.     

The Effects of Embedded Dipoles in Aromatic Self‐Assembled Monolayers

Using a representative model system, here electronic and structural properties of aromatic self‐assembled monolayers (SAMs) are described that contain an embedded, dipolar group. As polar unit, pyrimidine is used, with its orientation in the molecular backbone and, consequently, the direction of the embedded dipole moment being varied. The electronic and structural properties of these embedded‐dipole SAMs are thoroughly analyzed using a number of complementary characterization techniques combined with quantum‐mechanical modeling. It is shown that such mid‐chain‐substituted monolayers are highly interesting from both fundamental and application viewpoints, as the dipolar groups are found to induce a potential discontinuity inside the monolayer, electrostatically shifting the core‐level energies in the regions above and below the dipoles relative to one another. These SAMs also allow for tuning the substrate work function in a controlled manner independent of the docking chemistry and, most importantly, without modifying the SAM‐ambient interface.     

以业务流程为驱动的电力行业知识管理系统

文章以业务流程为驱动开展某电力单位知识管理系统建设,实现知识管理和业务流程管理相互促进,一方面在业务流程执行的刚性要求下,能有序地收集业务各个环节的知识,能实现与业务活动密切的知识文档的强制化积累,另一方面,员工通过此系统能将知识库中积累的知识复用于新的业务流程中,循环地提升业务工作能力。     

光纤激光器中包层光滤除器的研究进展

包层光滤除器对高功率光纤激光器系统的作用非常重要,影响着输出激光的光束质量和单色性,包层光滤除器是光纤激光器产品化的核心元器件。本文简述了光纤激光器包层光滤除器的工作原理,总结了几种包层光滤除器的结构和工作性能,分析了其优缺点,对包层光滤除器的研究方向具有一定的指导意义。     

某功率单元强迫风冷散热分析和优化

随着电子技术的发展,电子设备的散热问题显得越来越重要。以理论分析的基础上,针对某功率单元整体温度场和速度场,采用有限元的方法,进行数值分析。重点分析不同风机、不同翅片散热器下,功率单元温度场和流场的分布趋势。得到采用引风机、翅片较密的散热器(62个翅片),能够达到最佳的散热效果,满足实际工程需要,有利于功率单元长期可靠运行。     

自动气象站用高效控制系统的设计

介绍了供自动气象站用的小功率太阳能电源控制系统,能够在检测电池及太阳能特性的基础上,及时调整充电电压及电流来确定优化的充电策略,以充分利用太阳能。同时系统具有信息存储、实时监测和显示等特点,实现锂电池的快速充电。论文分析了系统的构成、工作原理和工作效率,实验表明,其发电量的利用效率最高可达95%,系统能够满足自动气象站的用电需求。