A 10ms-readout interface for the characterization of high-value wide-range experimental resistive sensors

Depari, A.; Flammini, A.; Marioli, D.; Sisinni, Emiliano; Comini, Elisabetta; Ponzoni, Andrea

doi:10.1016/j.snb.2009.12.026

Cited by 11 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 18 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…A prototype has been realized to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method [14], [15]. For the integrator stage, an ACF2101 from Texas Instruments has been adopted, being a switched integrator specifically designed to measure ultra-low currents and charges.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Measurement of Resistance and Capacitance of MOX Sensors With High Sampling Rate

Depari

Flammini

Sisinni

2012

IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Resistive chemical sensors, such as metal oxide (MOX) devices, usually exhibit resistance values within a wide range, from tens of kilohms to tens of gigohms. This is due, for example, to the different sensor material, manufacturing, working temperature, and so on. Electronic interfaces based on the resistance-to-time conversion (RTC) technique are widely used to handle such sensors, thanks to the low-cost, low-noise, and wide-range characteristics; in fact, time intervals are easier to measure within several decades without the need of scaling factors. However, the main limit of the RTC-based schemes is the variable and long measuring time, from microseconds (tens of kilohms) to quite a lot of seconds (tens of gigohms), impeding, for instance, a fine analysis of fast transients. This work proposes an innovative circuit based on the combination of the RTC method with the use of the least mean square interpolation algorithm. The implemented prototype allows the sensor resistance to be estimated with a constant measuring time of 10 ms within the range 10 kΩ ÷ 100 GΩ. The proposed implementation has shown a relative estimation error less than 10% (about 1% within 100 kΩ ÷ 100 GΩ). In addition, the system is capable to estimate the parasitic effect of the sensor (modeled with a capacitance up to 50 pF in parallel with the resistive component), showing a linearity error around 0.3% full scale (FS). A new tool has been also provided to estimate the uncertainty of the proposed approach due to rapid resistance changes, such as fast sensor transients. The simulation tool has been also used to prove performance improvement in the capacitance estimation, with respect to previously proposed solutions. Experimental results conducted using different real MOX sensors show the suitability of the proposed system for applications in which the sensor behavior need to be accurately analyzed, even in presence of fast dynamics.Index Terms-Large-value resistances, low measuring time, metal oxide (MOX) sensors, parasitic capacitance estimation, wide-range resistive sensors.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A recent work introduces a new architecture to provide a constant measuring time with large-value resistances [14], [15]. Particularly, a low-cost electronic circuit is proposed to guarantee a regular sensor sampling frequency (on the order of 100 Hz), keeping the input measuring range over six decades or more.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Measurement of Resistance and Capacitance of MOX Sensors With High Sampling Rate

Depari

Flammini

Sisinni

2012

IEEE Trans. Instrum. Meas.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…However, the measuring time is limited to about 100 ms, that is, ten times less than in [17], when dealing with a 10 G resistance. Recently, some RTC solutions with a dcexcited sensor have been proposed to reduce the readout time to 10 ms, while keeping small estimation errors (1%) and wide operating range (up to 100 G ) [13]. However, the complexity of this last solution limits its use to applications in which high performances are needed and where portability is not a big issue.…”

Section: Simulation and Experimental Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The current flowing through the sensor charges a capacitor and the charging time is measured. The capacitor discharge can be performed by closing a switch in parallel with the capacitor; in this case, the front-end is normally implemented with an active integrator and works as a ramp generator [12,13]. Otherwise, the capacitor is charged and discharged by a current alternately flowing in the two opposite directions, as occurs in a traditional relaxation oscillator [14][15][16].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A complementary metal oxide semiconductor—integrable conditioning circuit for resistive chemical sensor management

Depari

Marcellis

Ferri

et al. 2011

Meas. Sci. Technol.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents a new interface circuit (for MOX-based resistive chemical sensors) capable of overcoming the main limit of the circuits based on the resistance-to-time approach, i.e. the long measuring time with high-value resistances. The system is designed to operate with a single supply of 3.3 V, thus facilitating an ASIC implementation together with digital electronics for a first data analysis and transmission. This is particularly advantageous when the elaboration process requires a large computational load and a data pre-elaboration is advisable. Simulations of the integrable solution of the system have shown the feasibility of the proposed approach. A prototype with discrete components has been furthermore fabricated and experimentally tested, showing good performance in the range 0.5 MΩ to 10 GΩ with a maximum measuring time of 60 ms.

show abstract

“…One is resistance-tofrequency interpretation [2][3][4][5][6] which converts sensor resistance to capacitor-charging current to drive oscillation. Though this scheme simplifies circuit implementation by counting the number of oscillations, an excessive number of cycles are required for large dynamic range, resulting in slow conversion rate and large power per conversion.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A 0.5V, 11.3-μW, 1-kS/s resistive sensor interface circuit with correlated double sampling

Suh

Lee

et al. 2012

Proceedings of the IEEE 2012 Custom Integrated Circuits Conference

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper presents a low-power resistive sensor interface circuit with correlated double sampling which reduces the effect of amplifier offset and enables time-interleaved singleto-differential sampling. The proposed sampling scheme, used with a 12b SAR-type analog-to-digital converter, effectively doubles the input signal and improves linearity. The fabricated chip in 0.13μm CMOS demonstrates a sampling rate of 1-kS/s and a dynamic range of 117dB with a maximum conversion error of 0.32-percent while consuming only 11.3-μW from single supply voltage of 0.5V.

show abstract

A 10ms-readout interface for the characterization of high-value wide-range experimental resistive sensors

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

Measurement of Resistance and Capacitance of MOX Sensors With High Sampling Rate

Measurement of Resistance and Capacitance of MOX Sensors With High Sampling Rate

A complementary metal oxide semiconductor—integrable conditioning circuit for resistive chemical sensor management

A 0.5V, 11.3-μW, 1-kS/s resistive sensor interface circuit with correlated double sampling

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

A 10ms-readout interface for the characterization of high-value wide-range experimental resistive sensors

Cited by 11 publications

References 18 publications

Measurement of Resistance and Capacitance of MOX Sensors With High Sampling Rate

Measurement of Resistance and Capacitance of MOX Sensors With High Sampling Rate

A complementary metal oxide semiconductor—integrable conditioning circuit for resistive chemical sensor management

A 0.5V, 11.3-&#x03BC;W, 1-kS/s resistive sensor interface circuit with correlated double sampling

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

A 0.5V, 11.3-μW, 1-kS/s resistive sensor interface circuit with correlated double sampling