Current/Voltage Controlled Quadrature Sinusoidal Oscillators for Phase Sensitive Detection Using Commercially Available IC

0.5-V Nano-Power Shadow Sinusoidal Oscillator Using Bulk-Driven Multiple-Input Operational Transconductance Amplifier

This paper presents a low-frequency shadow sinusoidal oscillator using a bulk-driven multiple-input operational transconductance amplifier (MI-OTA) with extremely low-voltage supply and nano-power consumption. The proposed oscillator is composed using two-input single-output biquad filter and amplifiers. The condition and the frequency of oscillation of the shadow oscillator can be controlled electronically and independently using amplifiers. The circuit is designed in Cadence program using 0.18 µm CMOS technology from TSMC. The voltage supply is 0.5 V and the power consumption of the oscillator is 54 nW. The total harmonic distortion (THD) of the output signals is around 0.3% for 202 Hz. The simulation results are in accordance with theory.

Duty-Cycle Electronically Tunable Triangular/Square Wave Generator Using LT1228 Commercially Available ICs for Capacitive Sensor Interfacing

This paper proposes a duty-cycle electronically tunable triangular/square wave generator using LT1228 commercially available ICs for capacitive sensor interfacing. The generator comprises two LT1228s, a grounded resistor, and a grounded capacitor. The circuit provides two output signals which are triangular and square waves. Both signals are regulated by adjusting the current bias. Likewise, the amplitude of the triangular signal can be tuned electronically without affecting the frequency. In addition, the square wave can independently control the linear duty cycle via tuning the voltage. Experiment results confirm the performance of the proposed circuit that the amplitude of the triangular wave, frequency, and duty cycle are linearly controllable via current or voltage, which do not affect each other. The duty cycle, the amplitude of the triangular wave, and frequency have maximum errors of ±1.60%, ±3.33%, and ±2.55%, respectively.

0.3-Volt Rail-to-Rail DDTA and Its Application in a Universal Filter and Quadrature Oscillator

This paper presents the extremely low-voltage supply of the CMOS structure of a differential difference transconductance amplifier (DDTA). With a 0.3-volt supply voltage, the circuit offers rail-to-rail operational capability. The circuit is designed for low-frequency biomedical and sensor applications, and it consumes 357.4 nW of power. Based on two DDTAs and two grounded capacitors, a voltage-mode universal filter and quadrature oscillator are presented as applications. The universal filter possesses high-input impedance and electronic tuning ability of the natural frequency in the range of tens up to hundreds of Hz. The total harmonic distortion (THD) for the band-pass filter was 0.5% for 100 mV_pp @ 84.47 Hz input voltage. The slight modification of the filter yields a quadrature oscillator. The condition and the frequency of oscillation are orthogonally controllable. The frequency of oscillation can also be controlled electronically. The THD for a 67 Hz oscillation frequency was around 1.2%. The circuit is designed and simulated in a Cadence environment using 130 nm CMOS technology from United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC). The simulation results confirm the performance of the designed circuits.

Single Commercially Available IC-Based Electronically Controllable Voltage-Mode First-Order Multifunction Filter with Complete Standard Functions and Low Output Impedance

This paper presents the design of a voltage-mode three-input single-output multifunction first-order filter employing commercially available LT1228 IC for easy verification of the proposed circuit by laboratory measurements. The proposed filter is very simple, consisting of a single LT1228 as an active device with two resistors and one capacitor. The output voltage node is low impedance, resulting in an easy cascade-ability with other voltage-mode configurations. The proposed filter provides four filter responses: low-pass filter (LP), high-pass filter (HP), inverting all-pass filter (AP−), and non-inverting all-pass filter (AP+) in the same circuit configuration. The selection of output filter responses can be conducted without additional inverting or double gains, which is easy to be controlled by the digital method. The control of pole frequency and phase response can be conducted electronically through the bias current (I_B). The matching condition during tuning the phase response with constant voltage gain is not required. Moreover, the pass-band voltage gain of the LP and HP functions can be controlled by adjusting the value of resistors without affecting the pole frequency and phase response. Additionally, the phase responses of the AP filters can be selected as both lagging or leading phase responses. The parasitic effects on the filtering performances were also analyzed and studied. The performances of the proposed filter were simulated and experimented with a ±5 V voltage supply. For the AP+ experimental result, the leading phase response for 1 kHz to 1 MHz frequency changed from 180 to 0 degrees. For the AP− experimental result, the lagging phase response for 1 kHz to 1 MHz frequency changed from 0 to −180 degrees. The design of the quadrature oscillator based on the proposed first-order filter is also included as an application example.

Isomorphic Circuits of Independent Amplitude Tunable Voltage-Mode Bandpass Filters and Quadrature Sinusoidal Oscillators

This paper presents isomorphic circuits of voltage-mode (VM) non-inverting bandpass filters (NBPFs) and VM quadrature sinusoidal oscillators (QSOs) with independent amplitude control functionality. The proposed VM NBPFs and VM QSOs exhibit low-output impedance and independent amplitude control, which are important for easily cascading the VM operation and independent control of the amplitude gain. The proposed isomorphic circuits employ three LT1228 commercial integrated circuits (ICs), two grounded capacitors, two grounded resistors and one floating resistor. The use of grounded capacitors is beneficial for the implementation of the IC. Both NBPFs have a high-input impedance and have a wide range of independent amplitude tunable passband gain without affecting the quality factor (Q) and center frequency (fo). The Q and fo parameters of the proposed NBPFs are orthogonal tunability. By feeding back each input signal to the output response of the NBPF, two VM fully uncoupled QSOs are also proposed. The proposed VM fully uncoupled QSOs have two quadrature sinusoidal waveforms with two low-output impedances and one independent amplitude tunable sinusoidal waveform. The frequency of oscillation (FO) and the condition of oscillation (CO) are fully uncoupled and controlled electronically. The performances of the proposed isomorphic circuits have been tested with a ±5 volt power supply and are demonstrated by experimental measurements which confirm the theoretical assumptions.

Design and Experiment of Electronically Tunable Voltage-Mode Biquad and Output Current Amplitude Oscillator

This study presents an electronically tunable configuration for the design of a voltage-mode (VM) biquad with four input terminals and three output terminals. The proposed circuit employs four operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and two grounded capacitors. Depending on the selections of the four input voltage signals, all the standard filtering functions can be realized. The proposed configuration simultaneously provides VM inverting band-pass, non-inverting low-pass, and non-inverting band-reject filtering functions without any component-matching choices. It offers the features of a resistorless structure, high-input impedance, electronic control of the pole frequency and quality factor, and low active and passive sensitivities. The measured power dissipation of the biquad is 0.96 W under 32 mA constant output current. The measured 1 dB power gain compression point of the output inverting band-pass filter is −7 dBm. The measured value of the third-order intercept point is 5.136 dBm, and the measured value of the third-order intermodulation distortion is −50.83 dBc. Moreover, the measured value of the spurious-free dynamic range is 53.49 dB, and the figure-of-merit of the biquad is 268.75 × 103. In addition, an electronically controllable quadrature oscillator (QO) with amplitude of output current can be realized using the proposed biquad. The proposed electronically controllable QO can provide an amplitude modulation signal or an amplitude shift keying signal, and is widely applied in signal processing systems and electronic communication systems. PSpice simulations and experimental results are accomplished.

A New VCII Application: Sinusoidal Oscillators

The aim of this paper is to prove that, through a canonic approach, sinusoidal oscillators based on second-generation voltage conveyor (VCII) can be implemented. The investigation demonstrates the feasibility of the design results in a pair of new canonic oscillators based on negative type VCII (VCII−). Interestingly, the same analysis shows that no canonic oscillator configuration can be achieved using positive type VCII (VCII+), since a single VCII+ does not present the correct port conditions to implement such a device. From this analysis, it comes about that, for 5-node networks, the two presented oscillator configurations are the only possible ones and make use of two resistors, two capacitors and a single VCII−. Notably, the produced sinusoidal output signal is easily available through the low output impedance Z port of VCII, removing the need for additional voltage buffer for practical use, which is one of the main limitations of the current mode (CM) approach. The presented theory is substantiated by both LTSpice simulations and measurement results using the commercially available AD844 from Analog Devices, the latter being in a close agreement with the theory. Moreover, low values of THD are given for a wide frequency range.

Voltage-Mode Multifunction Biquad Filter and Its Application as Fully-Uncoupled Quadrature Oscillator Based on Current-Feedback Operational Amplifiers

This research introduces a new multifunction biquad filter based on voltage mode (VM) current-feedback operational amplifier (CFOA) and a fully uncoupled quadrature oscillator (QO) based on the proposed VM multifunction biquad filter. The proposed VM multifunction biquad filter has high impedance to the input voltage signal, and uses three CFOAs as active components, while using four resistors and two grounded capacitors as passive components. The VM CFOA-based multifunction biquad filter realizes band-reject, band-pass, and low-pass transfer functions at high-input impedance node simultaneously, which has the feature of easy cascading in VM operation without the need for additional voltage buffers. Additionally, the filter control factor parameter pole frequency (ω_o) and quality factor (Q) of the proposed VM multifunction biquad filter can be independently set by varying different resistors. By slightly modifying the VM multifunction biquad filter topology, a VM fully-uncoupled QO is easily obtained. The difference from the previous VM CFOA-based multifunction biquad filter is that the proposed VM CFOA-based multifunction biquad filter can be independently controlled by the filter control factor parameters, ω_o and Q. The proposed VM CFOA-based multifunction biquad filter can be transformed into a VM QO with fully-uncoupled adjustable of the oscillation condition and the oscillation frequency. The oscillation condition and the oscillation frequency can be fully-uncoupled and controlled by varying two sets of completely different resistors. The proposed VM fully-uncoupled QO solves the amplitude instability. The constant amplitude ratio of two quadrature sinusoidal waveforms can be realized when tuning FO. PSpice simulation and experimental results prove the performances of the proposed VM multifunction filter and VM fully-uncoupled QO. Simulation and experimental results confirm the theoretical analysis of the proposed circuits.

Versatile Voltage-Mode Biquadratic Filter and Quadrature Oscillator Using Four OTAs and Two Grounded Capacitors

This article presents a versatile voltage-mode (VM) biquad filter with independently electronic tunability. The proposed structure using one dual-output operational transconductance amplifier, three single-output operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and two grounded capacitors was explored to derive a new VM quadrature oscillator with the independent control of the oscillation frequency and the oscillation condition. The proposed versatile VM biquad filter achieves nearly all of the main advantages: (i) simultaneous realizations of band-reject, band-pass, and low-pass from the same architecture, (ii) multiple-input and multiple-output functions, (iii) independent electronic adjustability of quality factor and resonant angular frequency, (iv) no resistor needed, (v) all input terminals with cascade functions, (vi) no additional inverting amplifier for input signals, (vii) using only grounded capacitors, and (viii) easy to implement a VM quadrature oscillator with independent electronically controlled oscillation frequency and oscillation condition. The proposed versatile VM biquad filter employs only four OTAs and two grounded capacitors. The active components of the proposed VM biquad filter are one less than that of recent reports. The proposed circuit also brings versatility and simplicity to the design of VM biquad filters and VM quadrature oscillators. Filters and oscillators with less active and passive components have the advantages of low cost, low power dissipation, low circuit complexity, and low noise. Commercially available integrated circuit LT1228 and discrete components can be used to implement the proposed OTA-based circuits. The simulation and experiment results validated the theoretical analysis.