A 17.6-Bit 800-SPS Energy-Efficient Read-Out IC With Input Impedance Boosting

Abstract

A 17.6-bit, 800-sample-per-second (SPS) read-out integrated circuit has been implemented for a bridge sensor. The read-out integrated circuit has a capacitively-coupled instrumentation amplifier (CCIA) with a sensor offset voltage compensation circuit, an amplifier offset voltage compensation circuit, and an input impedance boosting loop (IBL). Followed by the CCIA, a programmable-gain third-order discrete-time incremental delta-sigma (ΔΣ) analog-to-digital converter (ADC) with an output data-rate of 12.8 kHz shortens the sensing time to reduce the static power consumption of the resistive bridge sensor and the read-out IC. To boost the input impedance of the CCIA, the system-level input and output choppers operate at a frequency of 12.8 kHz. The ΔΣ modulator converts the modulated signal to digital with a sampling clock of 4 MHz. The system-level chopping reduces the residual offset and the low-frequency noise with an on-chip cascade of integrators (CoI) filter. Implemented in a 0.13 μm CMOS process, the read-out circuit achieves an input impedance of 22 MΩ at a data-rate of 800 SPS, a sensor offset compensation range of ± 350 mV, a maximum effective resolution of 17.6 bits, and an input-referred noise of 1.72 μV <sub xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">RMS</sub> at a gain of 128. It draws an average current of 106.3 μA from a 3 V supply and 1.3 μA from a 1.5 V supply.