Energy-Efficient Smart Temperature Sensors in CMOS Technology

This book describes the design and implementation of energy-efficient smart (digital output) temperature sensors in CMOS technology. To accomplish this, a new readout topology, namely the zoom-ADC, is presented. It combines a coarse SAR-ADC with a fine Sigma-Delta (SD) ADC. The digital result obtained from the coarse ADC is used to set the reference levels of the SD-ADC, thereby zooming its full-scale range into a small region around the input signal. This technique considerably reduces the SD-ADCs full-scale range, and notably relaxes the number of clock cycles needed for a given resolution, as well as the DC-gain and swing of the loop-filter. Both conversion time and power-efficiency can be improved, which results in a substantial improvement in energy-efficiency. Two BJT-based sensor prototypes based on 1st-order and 2nd-order zoom-ADCs are presented. They both achieve inaccuracies of less than 0.2C over the military temperature range (-55C to 125C). A prototype capable of sensing temperatures up to 200C is also presented. As an alternative to BJTs, sensors based on dynamic threshold MOSTs (DTMOSTs) are also presented. It is shown that DTMOSTs are capable of achieving low inaccuracy (0.4C over the military temperature range) as well as sub-1V operation, making them well suited for use in modern CMOS processes.