A resistance-variation-tolerant constant-power heating circuit for integrated sensor applications

Author

Chan, Sunny S W ; Chan, Philip C.H.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Hong Kong Univ. of Sci. & Technol., Kowloon, Hong Kong

Volume

34

Issue

4

fYear

1999

fDate

4/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

432

Lastpage

439

Abstract

We report a novel CMOS circuit that is capable of maintaining constant heating power when heater resistance varies. This type of constant-power heater circuit finds application in various types of thermal-based sensors, such as vacuum sensors, ac power meters, gas-flow sensors, and gas-detection sensors. The heating power is kept constant by controlling a reference current. The circuit uses a bipolar-like translinear loop. To our knowledge, this is the first reported translinear loop implemented in CMOS. The prototype is implemented using a MOSIS 2-μm ORBIT n-well CMOS process. Experimental results showed that the heating power can be maintained to 3% with ±50% variation in resistance when the heater resistance is 1 KΩ. The maximum recorded heating power is about 11 mW for R_load of 1 KΩ

Keywords

CMOS integrated circuits; resistance heating; sensors; 1 kohm; 11 mW; 2 micron; CMOS translinear loop; constant-power heating circuit; integrated sensor; resistance-variation-tolerant circuit; CMOS process; Circuit testing; Power control; Power engineering and energy; Resistance heating; Resistors; Temperature control; Temperature dependence; Thermal sensors; Voltage;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Solid-State Circuits, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9200

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/4.753676

Filename

753676