Integrated CMOS edge voltage quantizer for detection of low-frequency simple waveforms

Abstract

A novel edge voltage (EV) quantizer with digital-intensive implementation is proposed to detect DC voltage, peak-to-peak magnitude, and frequency of low-frequency simple waveforms (e.g. sinusoidal). The proposed EV quantizer does not need the area-consuming low pass filter. It can be implemented using digital-intensive circuits with little computing complexity, thanks to the simple detection algorithm. A successive approximation register (SAR) version of the EV quantizer was integrated in a monolithic satellite low noise block (LNB) IC in a 65 nm CMOS process to detect low-frequency control signals. And the measurement results validate that the EV quantizer enables low-cost operation for detection of lowfrequency simple waveforms. Fig. 9. Block diagram of the SAR EV quantizer inside LNB IC.