Analog Circuits and Systems for Voltage-Mode and Current-Mode Sensor Interfacing Applications

This book describes novel circuit and system solutions for the design of analog electronic interfaces for resistive, capacitive and temperature sensors, also showing a wide variation range, with the intent to give a complete overview of the first analog front-ends. After a description of the main kinds of sensors and their definitions, the book presents novel electronic circuits, most of which do not require any initial calibration, also designed with analog microelectronic techniques, at transistor level in a standard CMOS integrated technology. These solutions utilize both AC and DC excitation voltages for the employed sensor and are developed both in Voltage-Mode approach (which considers the use of Operational Amplifiers or Operational Transconductance Amplifiers as the main active blocks) and in Current-Mode approach (using the Second Generation Current Conveyor as the main, active device), as well as with Low Voltage Low Power characteristics when designed for portable applications and instrumentations.

The interfaces described in this book can be fabricated easily both as prototype boards, for a fast characterization (simply implemented by students and technicians) and as integrated circuits, using modern design techniques.

• Provides a thorough introduction and description of sensors and basic resistive, capacitive and temperature sensor interfacing together with their main characteristics and parameter definitions;
• Includes a complete overview of the first analog front-ends, in particular for wide-range resistive and capacitive physical and chemical sensors;
• Describes interfaces that are easy to understand and implement both with discrete components for PCB fabrication and in a standard CMOS integrated technology.

Autorentext

Andrea De Marcellis received the Ph.D. degree in Electronic and Information Engineering at L'Aquila University. He currently work on analog design of integrated circuits for voltage-mode and current-mode sensor interfacing and signal processing. He is co-author of a patent and more than 70 scientific works on international journals and talks at conferences.

Giuseppe Ferri is an Associate Professor of Analog Electronics and Microelectronics at University of L'Aquila. His research activity is centred on the analog design of integrated circuits for portable applications and circuit theory. He is author and co-author of 2 patents, 5 books, 276 scientific works among which 92 on journals and 184 talks at national and international conferences. He is an IEEE senior member and Associate Editor of Journal of Circuits, Computers and Systems. Since March 2009 he has been the director of the PhD School in Electrical and Information Engineering at University of L'Aquila.

Zusammenfassung

Analog CMOS Microelectronic Circuits describes novel approaches for analog electronic interfaces design, especially for resistive and capacitive sensors showing a wide variation range, with the intent to cover a lack of solutions in the literature. After an initial description of sensors and main definitions, novel electronic circuits, which do not require any initial calibrations, are described; they show both AC and DC excitation voltage for the employed sensor, and use both voltage-mode and current-mode approaches. The proposed interfaces can be realized both as prototype boards, for fast characterization (in this sense, they can be easily implemented by students and researchers), and as integrated circuits, using modern low-voltage low-power design techniques (in this case, specialist analog microelectronic researchers will find them useful). The primary audience of Analog CMOS Microelectronic Circuits are: analog circuit designers, sensor companies, Ph.D. students on analog microelectronics, undergraduate and postgraduate students in electronic engineering.

Inhalt
Introduction.- 1. Physical and Chemical Sensors.- 2. Resistive, Capacitive and Temperature Sensor Interfacing Overview.- 3. The Voltage-mode Approach in Sensor Interfaces Design.- 4. The Current-mode Approach in Sensor Interfaces Design.- 5. Detection of Small and Noisy Signals in Sensor Interfacing: The Analog Lock-in Amplifier.- A1. The Second Generation Current-Conveyor (CCII).- A2. Noise and Offset Compensation Techniques.