A 0.18µm CMOS switched-capacitor amplifier using current-starving inverter based op-amp for low-power biosensor applications

Author

Selby, R. ; Kern, T. ; Wilson, William ; Chen, T.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO, USA

fYear

2013

fDate

Feb. 27 2013-March 1 2013

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

4

Abstract

Silicon biosensor arrays for the generation of chemical images have been proposed for the study of cell migration and tissue development. In order for these arrays to be viable they need highly accurate and low-power read channels. Low-power designs are key to making sure that heat generated by the silicon chip does not affect the bio-samples being tested. This paper presents an ultra-low power switched capacitor amplifier design for use in such a biosensor system. The amplifier was designed using a commercial 0.18μm process with a reduced supply voltage of 0.9V to minimize power consumption. The amplifier has an input signal bandwidth of 1kHz and consumes only 4μW with a 1MHz sampling rate. The total harmonic distortion (THD) of the amplifier output is -67.68dB resulting in an effective resolution of 10.96 bits.

Keywords

CMOS image sensors; biological tissues; biosensors; chemical sensors; elemental semiconductors; harmonic distortion; integrated circuit design; invertors; low-power electronics; radiofrequency amplifiers; sensor arrays; silicon; switched capacitor networks; CMOS switched-capacitor amplifier; Si; THD; bandwidth 1 kHz; biosample testing; cell migration; chemical image generation; current-starving inverter; frequency 1 MHz; gain 67.68 dB; heat generation; input signal bandwidth; low-power biosensor array application; low-power read channel; op-amp; power 4 muW; power consumption minimization; size 0.18 mum; tissue development; total harmonic distortion; ultralow power switched capacitor amplifier design; voltage 0.9 V; word length 10.96 bit; Biosensors; CMOS integrated circuits; Capacitors; Chemicals; Power demand; Silicon; Switching circuits;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Circuits and Systems (LASCAS), 2013 IEEE Fourth Latin American Symposium on

Conference_Location

Cusco

Print_ISBN

978-1-4673-4897-3

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/LASCAS.2013.6519039

Filename

6519039