An Ultra-Low Power Variable-Resolution Sigma-Delta Modulator for Signals Acquisition of Biomedical Instrument

Abstract

In this paper, an ultra-low power variable-resolution sigma-delta (ΣΔ) modulator for biomedical application is presented. The resolution of proposed modulator can be adjusted by switching its sampling frequency and architecture. The architecture is switched between second-order single-loop modulator and fourth-order cascaded second stage noise shaped modulator to reach different resolution requirement. The proposed sigma-delta modulator is implemented by single phase integrators based on a fully differential switched-capacitor circuit. The digital cancellation logic is embedded in the chip so that it would easily be integrated with biomedical instrument for effective acquisition. Experimental results of the proposed variable-resolution ΣΔ modulator fabricated in standard CMOS 0.18 μm technology confirm the expected specifications from 65 dB signal-to-noise distortion to 96 dB with 1 kHz bandwidth and power consumption range from 48 μW to 360 μW with a 1.8 V battery supply.