Open Access
A family of alternating current amplifiers for ultra-low frequency operation
(Wiley, 2021) Martincorena Arraiza, Maite; Carlosena García, Alfonso; Cruz Blas, Carlos Aristóteles de la; Beloso Legarra, Javier; López Martín, Antonio; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa
A family of capacitively coupled alternating current (AC) amplifiers featuring ultra-low (below 1 Hz) corner frequency is presented. This is achieved by using high-gain devices which actively boost feedback resistance and thus reduce corner frequency. This procedure is often termed, though with a different purpose, as 'bootstrapping'. The proposed architectures are very general and admit several possible practical implementations. To demonstrate their usefulness, the circuits are implemented with two operational amplifiers (OA), but other active devices such as operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) can be alternatively used. All circuits have been theoretically analyzed, extensively simulated and measured, exhibiting high-pass cutoff frequencies as low as 30 mHz.
Open Access
CMOS first-order all-pass filter with 2-Hz pole frequency
(IEEE, 2019) Paul, Anindita; Ramírez-Angulo, Jaime; López Martín, Antonio; González Carvajal, Ramón; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren
A CMOS fully integrated all-pass filter with an extremely low pole frequency of 2 Hz is introduced in this paper. It has 0.08-dB passband ripple and 0.029-mm2 Si area. It has 0.38-mW power consumption in strong inversion with ±0.6-V power supplies. In subthreshold, it has 0.64-uW quiescent power and operates with ±200-mV dc supplies. Miller multiplication is used to obtain a large equivalent capacitor without excessive Si area. By varying the gain of the Miller amplifier, the pole frequency can be varied from 2 to 48 Hz. Experimental and simulation results of a test chip prototype in 130-nm CMOS technology validate the proposed circuit.
Open Access
An enhanced gain-bandwidth class-AB miller op-amp with 23,800 MHz pF/mW FOM, 11-16 current efficiency and wide range of resistive and capacitive loads driving capability
(IEEE, 2021) Paul, Anindita; Ramírez-Angulo, Jaime; Díaz Sánchez, Alejandro; López Martín, Antonio; González Carvajal, Ramón; Li, Frank X.; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica
A compact power-efficient class-AB Miller op-amp is introduced. It uses a simple auxiliary circuit that enhances the op-amp's gain-bandwidth product and helps to drive a wide range of capacitive and resistive loads with high static and dynamic current efficiency. Simple Miller compensation is used to obtain stability over a wide range of loading conditions. The op-amp's simulation and experimental results in strong inversion with 15uA bias current and in sub-threshold with 250nA bias current are shown. Its performance is measured in terms of dynamic and static current efficiency figures of merit FOMCEDyn and FOMCEStat: and using the conventional small-signal figure of merit FOMSS: Experimental results of op-amps fabricated in a 130nm CMOS technology are shown that validate the proposed approach.
Open Access
360 nW gate-driven ultra-low voltage CMOS linear transconductor with 1 MHz bandwidth and wide input range
(IEEE, 2020) Rico-Aniles, Héctor Daniel; Ramírez-Angulo, Jaime; López Martín, Antonio; González Carvajal, Ramón; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoaren eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritzaren; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación
A low voltage linear transconductor is introduced. The circuit is a pseudo differential architecture that operates with ±0.2V supplies and uses 900nA total biasing current. It employs a floating battery technique to achieve low voltage operation. The transconductor has a 1MHz bandwidth. It exhibits a SNR = 72dB, SFDR = 42dB and THD = 0.83% for a 100mVpp 10kHz sinusoidal input signal. Moreover, stability is not affected by the capacitance of the signal source. The circuit has been validated with a prototype chip fabricated in a 130nm CMOS technology.
Open Access
Energy harvesting approaches in IoT scenarios with very low ambient energy
(European Association for the Development of Renewable Energy, Environment and Power Quality (EA4EPQ), 2019) López Martín, Antonio; Algueta-Miguel, Jose M.; Matías Maestro, Ignacio; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
The feasibility of multi-source energy harvesting in Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios with low and intermittent ambient energy is addressed. As a relevant case study, application to a smart cargo container system is analysed. The most relevant features of the main energy sources available in this target application are identified, and various transducers adapted to such sources are evaluated. Measurement results indicate that combined piezoelectric and thermoelectric generation inside cargo containers can significantly extend the battery lifetime of IoT end nodes embedded in such containers.
Open Access
Analog lock-in amplifier design using subsampling for accuracy enhancement in GMI sensor applications
(MDPI, 2023) Algueta-Miguel, Jose M.; Beato López, Juan Jesús; López Martín, Antonio; Ciencias; Zientziak; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC; Institute for Advanced Materials and Mathematics - INAMAT2; Universidad Pública de Navarra / Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa, PJUPNA2005
A frequency downscaling technique for enhancing the accuracy of analog lock-in amplifier (LIA) architectures in giant magneto-impedance (GMI) sensor applications is presented in this paper. As a proof of concept, the proposed method is applied to two different LIA topologies using, respectively, analog and switching-based multiplication for phase-sensitive detection. Specifically, the operation frequency of both the input and the reference signals of the phase-sensitive detector (PSD) block of the LIA is reduced through a subsampling process using sample-and-hold (SH) circuits. A frequency downscaling from 200 kHz, which is the optimal operating frequency of the employed GMI sensor, to 1 kHz has been performed. In this way, the proposed technique exploits the inherent advantages of analog signal multiplication at low frequencies, while the principle of operation of the PSD remains unaltered. The circuits were assembled using discrete components, and the frequency downscaling proposal was experimentally validated by comparing the measurement accuracy with the equivalent conventional circuits. The experimental results revealed that the error in the signal magnitude measurements was reduced by a factor of 8 in the case of the analog multipliers and by a factor of 21 when a PSD based on switched multipliers was used. The error in-phase detection using a two-phase LIA was also reduced by more than 25%.
Open Access
Sensing in coin discriminators
(IEEE, 2007) Carlosena García, Alfonso; López Martín, Antonio; Arizti, Fernando; Martínez de Guereñu, Ane; Pina Insausti, José L.; García Sayés, Miguel; Ingeniería Eléctrica y Electrónica; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa eta Elektronikoa
This paper describes the technologies used in coin discriminator devices, stressing the improvements and novel mechanisms introduced by the authors in the past few years as a result of the cooperation with one leading company in the vending sector. Emphasis is put on how low-cost sensors are used to characterize coins (or tokens) and discriminate them from their counterfeits.
Open Access
Low-power ultrasonic front-end for cargo container monitoring
(IEEE, 2019) Algueta-Miguel, Jose M.; García Oya, José Ramón; López Martín, Antonio; Cruz Blas, Carlos Aristóteles de la; Muñoz Chavero, Fernando; Hidalgo Fort, Eduardo; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
A low-power ultrasonic communication system conceived for cargo container monitoring is presented. Two piezoelectric transducers operating at 40 kHz are used for generating and acquiring an ultrasonic signal through the metallic wall, thus establishing a non-invasive inside-outside communication that preserves the container integrity. Both transducers are fixed by means of a novel magnetic case designed for optimizing data transmission. The acoustic and electrical characteristics of the ultrasonic channel are analyzed. An experimental measurement setup based on FPGA has been implemented for comparing some basic modulation and detection schemes in terms of Bit Error Rate (BER), also considering their robustness against undesired mechanical and electromagnetic perturbations. On this basis, a compact digital DBPSK modulator using a square carrier signal is proposed. Frequency and amplitude tracking algorithms are designed for optimizing the quality and robustness of the data transmission. Finally, a low-power low-rate (up to few kbps) architecture based on the previous elements is presented. All the proposed contributions are experimentally validated.
Open Access
Two-stage OTA with all subthreshold MOSFETs and optimum GBW to DC-current ratio
(IEEE, 2022) Beloso Legarra, Javier; Grasso, A.; López Martín, Antonio; Palumbo, Gaetano; Pennisi, Salvatore; Institute of Smart Cities - ISC
An approach for the design of two-stage classAB OTAs with sub-1µA current consumption is proposed and demonstrated. The approach employs MOS transistors operating in subthreshold and allows maximum gain-bandwidth product (GBW) to be achieved for a given DC current budget, by setting optimum distribution of DC currents in the two amplifier stages. Following this strategy, a class AB OTA was designed in a standard 0.5-µm CMOS technology supplied from 1.6-V and experimentally tested. Measured GBW was 307 kHz with 980-nA DC current consumption while driving an output capacitance of 40 pF with an average slew rate of 96 V/ms
Open Access
Buscando claves para promover la participación de la mujer en estudios de Ingeniería de Telecomunicación
(Educación Editora, 2014) Alejos, Ana V.; Milagros, María Pilar; Falcone Lanas, Francisco; López Martín, Antonio; Ingeniería Eléctrica, Electrónica y de Comunicación; Ingeniaritza Elektrikoa, Elektronikoa eta Telekomunikazio Ingeniaritza
En la presente contribución se discute la necesidad de analizar el problema de la escasa presencia de la mujer en los estudios de Ingeniería de Telecomunicación. Se describe una encuesta en curso para indagar los factores de la segregación de género en esta carrera. Asimismo, se propone trasladar al aula medidas que capten una mayor presencia femenina.