A high precision temperature control system for CMOS integrated wide range resistive gas sensors

Abstract

In this work we present an integrated interface for wide range resistive gas sensors able to heat the sensor resistance through a constant power heater block at 0°C---350°C operating temperatures. The proposed temperature control system is formed by a sensor heater (which fixes the sensor temperature at about 200°C), a R/f (or R/T) converter, which converts the resistive value into a period (or frequency), and can be able to reveal about 6 decades variation (from 10 K? up to 10 G?), and a digital subsystem that control the whole systems loop. This interface allows high sensibility and precision and performs good stability in temperature and power supply drift and low power characteristics so it can be used also in portable applications. Test measurements, performed on the fabricated chip, have shown an excellent agreement between theoretical expectations and simulation results.