A Reconfigurable Analog Processor Based on FPAA with Coarse-Grained, Heterogeneous Configurable Analog Blocks

A Reconfigurable Analog Processor (RAP), based on the Field-Programmable Analog Array (FPAA) architecture, is designed for mixed-signal processing. The use of coarse-grained, Heterogeneous Configurable Analog Blocks (Hetero-CABs) in the FPAA architecture breaks through the former FPAA design limitations. Both low power design and flexibility are achieved. Mixed-signal processing can be performed by the assistance of an on-chip MCU and Configurable Digital Block (CDB). Relative precision of the analog processing is 99.5%, guaranteed by the minimized use of switches in the FPAA architecture, low-offset design and offset/noise cancelling technique. A PID controller is taken as an application example. RAP is manufactured in SMIC standard 0.18μm CMOS process, the total die area is 11 mm². The maximum power consumption is 17.6mA with a 3.3V supply voltage, resulting in a 17× improvement in energy-efficiency over current conventional FPAAs.