• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.21 no.10
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• pp.1169-1176
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• 2010

The RF front-end for L1/L2 dual-band Global Positioning System(GPS) receiver is presented in this paper. The RF front-end(down-converter) using low IF architecture consists of a wideband low noise amplifier(LNA), a current mode logic(CML) frequency divider and a I/Q down-conversion mixer with a poly-phase filter for image rejection. The current bleeding technique is used in the LNA and mixer to obtain the high gain and solve the head-room problem. The common drain feedback is adopted for low noise amplifier to achieve the wideband input matching without inductors. The fabricated RF front-end using $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS process shows a gain of 38 dB for L1 and 41 dB for L2 band. The measured IIP3 is -29 dBm in L1 band and -33 dBm in L2 band, The input return loss is less than -10 dB from 50 MHz to 3 GHz. The measured noise figure(NF) is 3.81 dB for L1 band and 3.71 dB for L2 band. The image rejection ratio is 36.5 dB. The chip size of RF front end is $1.2{\times}1.35mm^2$.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics and Information Engineers
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• v.54 no.5
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• pp.24-32
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• 2017

In this paper, a low power 4th order delta-sigma modulator was designed with a high resolution of 12 bits or more for the biological signal processing. Using time-interleaving technique, 4th order delta-sigma modulator was designed with one operational amplifier. So power consumption can be reduced to 1/4 than a conventional structure. To operate stably in the big difference between the two capacitor for kT/C noise and chip size, the variable-stage amplifier was designed. In the first phase and second phase, the operational amplifier is operating in a 2-stage. In the third and fourth phase, the operational amplifier is operating in a 1-stage. This was significantly improved the stability of the modulator because the phase margin exists within 60~90deg. The proposed delta-sigma modulator is designed in a standard $0.18{\mu}m$ CMOS n-well 1 poly 6 Metal technology and dissipates the power of $354{\mu}W$ with supply voltage of 1.8V. The ENOB of 11.8bit and SNDR of 72.8dB at 250Hz input frequency and 256kHz sampling frequency. From measurement results FOM1 is calculated to 49.6pJ/step and FOM2 is calculated to 154.5dB.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.42 no.6 s.336
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• pp.1-8
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• 2005

In this paper, CMOS A/D converter with 6bit 2GSPS Nyquist input at 1.8V is designed. In order to obtain the resolution of 6bit and the character of high-speed operation, we present an Interpolation type architecture. In order to overcome the problems of high speed operation, a novel One-zero Detecting Encoder, a circuit to reduce the Reference Fluctuation, an Averaging Resistor and a Track & Hold, a novel Buffered Reference for the improved SNR are proposed. The proposed ADC is based on 0.18um 1-poly 3-metal N-well CMOS technology, and it consumes 145mW at 1.8V power supply and occupies chip area of 977um $\times$ 1040um. Experimental result show that SNDR is 36.25 dB when sampling frequency is 2GHz and INL/DNL is $\pm$0.5LSB at static performance.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.47 no.1
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• pp.60-68
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• 2010

In case of sensorineural hearing loss, auditory perception can be activated by electrical stimulation of the nervous system via electrode implanted into the cochlea or auditory nerve. Since the tonotopic map of the human auditory nerve has not been definitively identified, the recording of auditory nerve signal with microelectrode is desirable for determining the tonotopic map. This paper proposes the multi-channel analog front-end for auditory nerve signal detection. A channel of the proposed analog front-end consists of an AC coupling circuit, a low-power 4th-order Gm-C LPF, and a single-slope ADC. The AC coupling circuit transfers only AC signal while it blocks DC signal level. Considering the bandwidth of the auditory signal, the Gm-C LPF is designed with OTAs adopting floating-gate technique. For the channel-parallel ADC structure, the single-slope ADC is used because it occupies the small silicon area. Experimental results shows that the AC coupling circuit and LPF have the bandwidth of 100 Hz - 6.95 kHz and the ADC has the effective resolution of 7.7 bits. The power consumption per a channel is $12\;{\mu}W$, the power supply is 3.0 V, and the core area is $2.6\;mm\;{\times}\;3.7\;mm$. The proposed analog front-end was fabricated in a 1-poly 4-metal $0.35-{\mu}m$ CMOS process.

• Clean Technology
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.410-415
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• 2013

The supercapacitors were fabricated using silver (Ag) nano paste and activated carbon paste on the polyimide (PI) film and 5% potassium polyacrylate (PAAK) was used for gel electrolyte. In this paper, the current collector film and the electrode film were fabricated using screen printing. The thickness of printed silver paste was $7.3{\mu}m$ and the sheet resistance has the range of $5-7m{\Omega}/square$. An activated carbon with a surface area of $1,968m^2/g$, an electronic conducting agent (SUPER P, TIMCAL) and poly (4-vinylphenol) were mixed in 2-(2-buthoxyethoxy) ethyl acetate (BCA) with a ratio of 7:1:3 to fabricate the electrode paste. To analyze electrochemical characteristics, cyclic voltammetry was performed to evaluate the stability of the devices under the voltage range of -0.5-0.5 V. The calculated specific capacitances were 44.04 and 8.62 F/g for 10 and 500 mV/s scan rates, respectively.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.5 s.347
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• pp.1-10
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• 2006

In this paper, an 1.8V 8-bit 500MSPS CMOS A/D Converter is proposed. In order to obtain the resolution of 8bits and high-speed operation, a Cascaded-Folding Cascaded-Interpolation type architecture is chosen. For the purpose of improving SNR, Cascaded-folding Cascaded-interpolation technique, distributed track and hold are included [1]. A novel folding circuit, a novel Digital Encoder, a circuit to reduce the Reference Fluctuation are proposed. The chip has been fabricated with a $0.18{\mu}m$ 1-poly 5-metal n-well CMOS technology. The effective chip area is $1050{\mu}m{\times}820{\mu}m$ and it dissipates about 146mW at 1.8V power supply. The INL and DNL are within ${\pm}1LSB$, respectively. The SNDR is about 43.72dB at 500MHz sampling frequency.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SD
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• v.43 no.6 s.348
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• pp.53-61
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• 2006

In high speed flash type or pipelining type A/D Converter, the faster sampling frequency is, the more the effect of DC reference fluctuation is increased by clock feed-through and kick-back. When we measure A/D Converter, further, external noise increases reference voltage fluctuation. Thus reference fluctuation reduction circuit must be needed in high speed A/D converter. Conventional circuit simply uses capacitor but layout area is large and it's not efficient. In this paper, a reference fluctuation reduction circuit using transmission gate is proposed. In order to verify the proposed technique, we designed and manufactured 6bit 2GSPS CMOS A/D converter. The A/D converter is based on 0.18um 1-poly 5-metal N-well CMOS technology, and it consumes 145mW at 1.8V power supply. It occupies chip area of $977um\times1040um$. Experimental result shows that SNDR is 36.25 dB and INL/DNL ${\pm}0.5LSB$ when sampling frequency is 2GHz.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.161-169
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• 2020

In order to reduce the manufacturing cost of MCU chips used in applications such as wireless chargers and USB-C, compared to DP-EEPROM (Double Poly EEPROM), which requires 3 to 5 additional process masks, it is even more necessary MTP(Multi-Time Programmable), which is less than one additional mask and have smaller unit cell size. In addition, in order to improve endurance characteristics and data retention characteristics of the MTP memory cell due to E/P(Erase / Program) cycling, the distribution of the V_TP(Program Threshold Voltage) and the V_TE(Erase Threshold Voltage) needs to be narrow. In this paper, we proposed a current-type BL S/A(Bit-Line Sense Amplifier) circuit, WM(Write Mask) circuit, BLD(BL Driver) circuit and a algorithm, which can reduce the distribution of program and V_T and erase V_T, through compare the target current by performing the erase and program pulse of the short pulse several times, and if the current specification is satisfied, the program or erase operation is no longer performed. It was confirmed that the 256Kb MTP memory fabricated in the Magnachip semiconductor 0.13㎛ process operates well on the wafer in accordance with the operation mode.

• Solar Energy
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• v.17 no.4
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• pp.3-11
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• 1997

Because grain boundaries in polycrystalline silicon act as potential barriers and recombination centers for the photo-generated charge carriers, these defects degrade conversion effiency of solar cell. To reduce these effects of grain boundaries, we investigated various influencing factors such as thermal treatment, various grid pattern, selective wet etching for grain boundaries, buried contact metallization along grain boundaries, grid on metallic thin film. Pretreatment above $900^{\circ}C$ in $N_2$ atmosphere, gettering by $POCl_3$ and Al treatment for back surface field contributed to obtain a high quality poly-Si. To prevent carrier losses at the grain boundaries, we carried out surface treatment using Schimmel etchant. This etchant delineated grain boundaries of $10{\mu}m$ depth as well as surface texturing effect. A metal AI diffusion into grain boundaries on rear side reduced back surface recombination effects at grain boundaries. A combination of fine grid with finger spacing of 0.4mm and buried electrode along grain boundaries improved short circuit current density of solar cell. A ultra-thin Chromium layer of 20nm with transmittance of 80% reduced series resistance. This paper focused on the grain boundary effect for terrestrial applications of solar cells with low cost, large area, and high efficiency.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.149-155
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• 2015

This paper proposes 5-MS/s 10-bit digital-to-analog converter(DAC) with the improved linearity. The proposed DAC consists of a 10-bit R-2R-based DAC, an output buffer using a differential voltage amplifier with rail-to-rail input range, and a band-gap reference circuit for the bias voltage. The linearity of the 10-bit R-2R DAC is improved as the resistor of 2R is implemented by including the turn-on resistance of an inverter for a switch. The output voltage range of the DAC is determined to be $2/3{\times}VDD$ from an rail-to-rail output voltage range of the R-2R DAC using a differential voltage amplifier in the output buffer. The proposed DAC is implemented using a 1-poly 8-metal 130nm CMOS process with 1.2-V supply. The measured dynamic performance of the implemented DAC are the ENOB of 9.4 bit, SNDR of 58 dB, and SFDR of 63 dBc. The measured DNL and INL are less than +/-0.35 LSB. The area and power consumption of DAC are $642.9{\times}366.6{\mu}m^2$ and 2.95 mW, respectively.