This paper presents a fully-digital capacitive sensor interface. By directly transforming the sensor value instead of using an intermediate step in the voltage domain, the architecture can cope with very low signal swings. An implementation for barometric pressure sensing with a supply voltage of 0.3 V demonstrates the benefits. With a power consumption of only 270 nW and an acquisition time of 1 ms, an ENOB of 6.1 is obtained, resulting in a FOM of 2.1 pJ/conv for the entire interface. This is at least an order of magnitude better than current state-of-the-art implementations.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.