High Speed and Low Pedestal Error Bootstrapped CMO-1
High Speed and Low Pedestal Error Bootstrapped CMO-1
High Speed and Low Pedestal Error Bootstrapped CMO-1
1. INTRODUCTION
Analog techniques have dominated signal processing for years, but digital techniques are slowly en-
croaching into this domain. Digital signal processing (DSP) is becoming popular because its flexibility to per-
form various processing operations. This technology is widely used in many different domains, such as wireless
communications, medical electronics, measurement instrumentation, digital multimedia, etc. One of the essen-
tial component of DSP is analog to digital converter (ADC), because most natural signals in the world (such as
voltage, current, temperature and pressure) are analog. ADC perform the digitalization of analog signals at fixed
time period, which is generally specified by the application. Since the digital signal that will be processed by
DSP is originally from ADC, performance of the DSP is highly dependent to the performance of ADC itself. To
avoid premature signal degradation, the ADC must achieve specified sampling speed, resolution and precision.
To meet the specifications, several techniques and ADC architectures have been proposed. Parallel (flash) ADC
is by far the fastest and conceptually simplest has been reported [1]. The drawbacks of this architecture are
the resolution is limited by circuit complexity, high power dissipation, and comparator and reference mismatch.
To reduce hardware complexity, power dissipation and die area, and to increase the resolution but to maintain
high conversion rates, flash converters can be extended to pipeline [2], delta-sigma ADC [3, 4], or successive
approximation ADC [5].
The key building block in front-end of ADC is Sample and Hold circuit (S/H). This front-end circuit
is almost inevitable in some types of ADC. The main function of S/H is to take analog input signal samples
and hold its value until ADC can process the information. In other word, the accuracy and the speed of the
converter is strongly dependent on performance of S/H, because this circuit provide the information which will
be processed by the converter. The architectures of S/H can roughly be divided into two, open-loop and closed-
loop architectures. The main difference between them is that in closed-loop architectures, the hold capacitor
is placed in a feedback loop, at least in hold mode, whereas the open-loop one has no feedback. Moreover,
the characteristics between these two architectures are mostly different. The open-loop architecture offer the
simplicity and speed solution, however its accuracy is limited by distortion arising from nonlinearity of the
switch which is caused by its signal dependent on-resistance and pedestal error which is caused by the signal
dependent channel charge injection and clock feedthrough. On the other hand, enclosing the capacitor in the
feedback loop on the close-loop architecture can reduces the effect of nonlinearity and signal-dependent charge
injection and clock feedthrough from the MOS switches, offering better accuracy as a result. Unfortunately, an
inevitable consequence of the use of feedback is conditionally stability problem. Furthermore, since close-loop
architecture uses Op-Amp, its bandwidth and slew rate directly limit the speed of the S/H. The complexity and
power consumption of the Op-Amp also rise another problem.
In order to maintain the simplicity and the speed, and to increase the accuracy of S/H, in this paper a new
open-loop CMOS S/H is proposed. The proposed circuit consists of new bootstrap circuit to overcome channel
charge injection and clock feedthrough signal dependent problem, and transmission gate (TG) switch to deal with
on-resistance problem. In this paper, a simple theoretical and numerical method to minimize the pedestal error is
also presented. The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 explain the operation of S/H, especially
open-loop S/H. In this section, channel charge injection and clock feedthrough mechanism will be reanalyzed
in detail. Several previous existing techniques related to open-loop S/H will also be presented in this section.
Section 3 presents the proposed circuit and its theoretical analysis. Section 4 presents the simulation result of
proposed circuit and the comparison with other works. At last, the conclusion is presented in section 5.
High Speed and Low Pedestal Error Bootstrapped CMOS... (Agung Setiabudi)
4150 ISSN: 2088-8708
(a) (b)
Figure 1. S/H phases: (a) Sampling phase of S/H circuit, (b) On-off transition phase of S/H circuit
When the switch turns off (S/H circuit enter hold phase), Qch exits through the source and drain terminals
like shown in Figure. 1. (b). The charge injected to left side of Figure. 1. (b) is absorbed by the input source,
creating no error. Whereas, the charge injected to the right side is deposited on CH , creating an error in the output
node. Assuming that the amount of charge which flow to the left side equal to the one which flow to the right
side, it is obtained that the amount of charge causes error in the output node is Qch /2. Therefore, the error voltage
caused by channel charge injection then can be written as follow
Lov W Cox
∆Vcf t = − φh (4)
Lov W Cox + CH
Where Lov is gate-drain or gate-source overlap length. These errors are the main source of accuracy
problem in open-loop S/H. Error caused by channel charge injection is more dominant compared with error
caused by clock feedthrough, because the length of overlap capacitance in eq. (4) is very small. In some cases,
this error is often neglected. The other problem that limit the accuracy of open-loop S/H is nonlinearity. This
nonlinearity is caused by signal dependent on-resistance shown in eq. (5). Where µ is mobility of the electron.
From the equation, it also can be inferred that the switch has narrow input swing. because as the input signal
equal to Vdd − Vt , the on-resistance become infinity.
1
Ron = (5)
W
µCox (Vdd − Vin − Vt )
L
1
Ron = (6)
Wn Wp
µn Cox (Vdd − Vin − Vtn ) + µp Cox (Vin − |Vtp |)
Ln Lp
Since the TG switch is built using two type MOS transistors, the error in this switch is also caused by
those two transistor. And as well-known that the characteristic of N type and P type MOS transistor are mutually
opposite. Thus, the error of NMOS and PMOS are mutually compensate. The total error in this S/H circuit is
written in eq. (7).
1
∆V = Cox [Wp Lp (Vin − |Vtp |) − Wn Ln (Vdd − Vin − Vtn )]
2CH
(7)
Lovp Wp − Lovn Wn
+ Cox φh
Lovn Wn Cox + Lovp Wp Cox + CH
Where subscript n and p refer to N type and P type MOS transistor, respectively. The equations used for
modeling hold error in this paper is basic model, neglecting body effect and gate/clock voltage falling rate. The
first term in this equation is the error caused by channel charge injection. This term is dominant term. The second
term is error caused by clock feedthrough. This term is less dominant and can be neglected in some application
with less accuracy consideration.
Theoretically, the performance of open-loop S/H circuit using TG switch is better than the other one
with single MOS transistor. However, in the high speed and high accuracy application, the use of open-loop S/H
circuit with TG switch is not recommended. Because the effect of channel charge injection, clock feedthrough
and on-resistance signal dependent is still very significant to accuracy degradation. To overcome this problem,
many researchers develop and propose new techniques. The use of dummy transistor to eliminate the effect
of channel charge injection and clock feedthrough has been reported. However, the performance of dummy
transistor is limited by the transistor mismatch and unbalance impedance at drain and source terminal of the
switch. The other technique is bottom plate sampling. Recently, the improvement of bottom plate sampling is
reported in [8, 9]. This technique shows decent performance to decrease charge injection and clock feedthrough
effect, but the complex clocking phase in this technique rises another problem in system complexity. Several
other techniques also have been reported, such as the use of current conveyor as analog switch, current controlled
current mirror switching, distributed S/H, substrate-biasing-effect attenuated T switch [10], cross couple switch
capacitor network, offset cancellation replica circuit [11], bootstrapping techniques [12], and other techniques
[13, 14, 15, 16]. For open-loop S/H circuit the bootstrapping technique is a suitable one, this technique keeps the
gate-source voltage of sampling transistor fix at particular value. This approach keeps the on-resistance constant
and thus improve the switch linearity. By keeping the gate-source voltage fix, it also decreases the channel charge
injection and clock feedthrough signal dependent.
High Speed and Low Pedestal Error Bootstrapped CMOS... (Agung Setiabudi)
4152 ISSN: 2088-8708
These circuits are controlled by φ and φ̄ which are non-overlapping clocks with opposite phases. The
operation principles of the proposed circuit is explained as follows. When φ is high, (φ = 1, φ̄ = 0), in NMOS
bootstrap circuit, M1−3 are on and M4−5 are off, cause Vdd is applied at top plate of capacitor C1 , and since M2
is on, the output of this circuit which is connected to the gate of NMOS in TG switch is connected to ground
(Vgn = 0). While in PMOS bootstrap circuit, M6−8 are on and M9−10 are off. Thus, Vdd is applied at top plate
of capacitor C2 , and since M7 is on, the output of this circuit which is connected to the gate of PMOS in TG
switch is connected to Vdd (Vgp = Vdd ). In this phase, the circuit is in hold phase as depicted in Figure. 4.
(a) (b)
Figure 4. Hold phase in bootstrap circuit: (a) NMOS bootstrap, (b) PMOS bootstrap
When φ is low, (φ = 0, φ̄ = 1), in NMOS bootstrap circuit, M1−3 are off and M4−5 are on, cause the
bottom plate of capacitor C1 connects to Vin and its top plate connects to Vgn . Thus, the output of this circuit,
Vgn equal to Vin + Vdd . While in PMOS bootstrap circuit, M6−8 are off and M9−10 are on, cause the top plate
of capacitor C2 connects to Vin and its bottom plate connects to Vgp . Therefore, the output of the circuit, Vgp
equal to Vin − Vdd . In this phase, the circuit is in sampling phase as depicted in Figure. 5. Based on the operation
principles explanation, the output of NMOS and PMOS bootstrap circuits can be written in Eqs. (8) and (9),
respectively.
(
Vin + Vdd , in sampling phase
Vgn = (8)
0, in hold phase
(a) (b)
Figure 5. Sampling phase in bootstrap circuit: (a) NMOS bootstrap, (b) PMOS bootstrap
(
Vin − Vdd , in sampling phase
Vgp = (9)
Vdd , in hold phase
By using Eqs. (8) and (9), the on-resistance and the total error of the proposed circuit can be written in
Eqs. (10) and (11), respectively.
1
Ron = (10)
Wn Wp
µn Cox (Vdd − Vtn ) + µp Cox (Vdd − |Vtp |)
Ln Lp
1
∆V = Cox [Wp Lp (Vdd − |Vtp |) − Wn Ln (Vdd − Vtn )]
2CH
(11)
Lovp Wp (2Vdd − Vin ) − Lovn Wn (Vdd + Vin )
+ Cox
Lovn Wn Cox + Lovp Wp Cox + CH
Equation (10) shows that the on-resistance of proposed S/H circuit is independent to input signal. Al-
though it is well known that the threshold voltage of transistor is input signal dependent, it can be neglected
because its value variation is small enough. By this condition, the linearity of S/H can be increased and the
distortion can be reduced. This equation also shows that the overdrive voltage of each transistor in TG switch
increase by Vin . It means the value of on-resistance becomes smaller and it can increase the switching speed.
Equation (11) shows that the total error dominant term (error caused by channel charge injection) is
independent to input signal Vin . Although the second term (error caused by clock feedthrough) becomes in-
put signal dependent, this technique still gives the advantages. Because the input signal dependent shifts from
dominant term to less dominant term, so that the total input signal dependent can decrease.
4. SIMULATION RESULTS
The performance of the proposed circuit was evaluated using HSPICE with 1P, 5M, 3-well, 0.18-m
CMOS process (BSIM3v3.2 LEVEL53). Figure 6 shows the input and output waveform of bootstrap circuit for a
sinusoidal input of 1 V peak-to-peak at 50 MHz with a 1 GHz sampling clock. From this simulation result it can
be known that in the sampling phase the circuit can track the input (dashed line) voltage and give the output (solid
line) of Vin + Vdd for NMOS bootstrap circuit and Vin − Vdd for PMOS bootstrap circuit. Figure 7 (a) shows
the transient response of the proposed S/H circuit for 50 MHz sinusoidal 1 V peak-to-peak differential input
signal with a 1 GHz sampling clock. The common mode (CM) level of differential signal is 0.25 V. The pedestal
error as the function of differential input voltage is shown in Figure. 7 (b). For 50 MHz sinusoidal 1 V peak-to-
peak differential input signal with a 1 GHz sampling clock, the maximum absolute value and root-means-square
(RMS) value of pedestal error are 2.75 mV and 1.72 mV, respectively with 0.542 mW power consumption.
(a) (b)
Figure 6. The input and output waveform of bootstrap circuit for a sinusoidal input of 1 V peak-to-peak at 50
MHz with a 1 GHz sampling clock: (a) NMOS bootstrap circuit, (b) PMOS bootstrap circuit
High Speed and Low Pedestal Error Bootstrapped CMOS... (Agung Setiabudi)
4154 ISSN: 2088-8708
(a) (b)
Figure 7. Simulation results of proposed S/H circuit for 50 MHz sinusoidal 1 V peak-to-peak differential input
signal with a 1 GHz sampling clock: (a) Input and output waveform, (b) Pedestal error
Figure 8 shows the sampled signal spectrum of 50 MHz sinusoidal 1 V peak-to-peak differential input
signal with a 1 GHz sampling clock. From the analysis, in the Nyquist bandwidth the proposed circuit has
performances of 90.87 dB SNR, 73.50 SINAD/SNDR which is equal to 11.92 bits ENOB, -73.58 dB THD, and
73.95 dB SFDR. Furthermore, the simulation of the circuit in various sampling frequencies and input frequencies
are done. The input frequency varies from 10 MHz to 50 MHz in the step of 10 MHz while the sample frequency
varies from 300 MHz to 1 GHz in the step of 100 MHz. From this condition the proposed circuit has average
performances of 69.64 dB SNR, 64.50 SINAD/SNDR which is equal to 10.42 bits ENOB, -77.59 THD, and 69.64
dB SFDR. At last, a comparison of main performance of the proposed circuit with other works is summarized in
Table. 1. In general, the proposed circuit shows better performance than other work. Compared with the same
bootstrapping technique [12], the proposed circuit also shows better SNDR and higher sampling rate.
Figure 8. Sampled signal spectrum of 50 MHz sinusoidal 1 V peak-to-peak differential input signal with a 1 GHz
sampling clock
Table 1. Comparison of main performance of the proposed circuit with other works
Parameter Proposed [11] [13] [14] [15] [16] [10] [9] [8] [12]
Sampling rate (MS/s) 1000 500 40 200 330 200 100 500 250 280
Input frequency (MHz) 50 10 - 40 80 - 10 220 20 7
Input Amplitude (V) 1 0.8 1.4 0.8 1.2 2 2 1.6 1.6 0.5
SNR (dB) 90.87 - 67 - - - - - - -
SINAD/SNDR (dB) 73.50 60.50 - 45 - - 85.5 76 - 57.01
ENOB (bits) 11.92 9.8 9 7.2 11 12 13.9 12.33 14 9.18
THD (dB) -73.58 -60.5 -56 - -68.3 - - - - -
SFDR (dB) 73.95 69 57 60 - 87 92.87 - 80 -
Pedestal Error (mV) <2.75 <4.9 - - <0.8 - - - - -
Power consumption (mW) 0.542 6 0.5 22 26.4 - - - - 0.88×10−3
CMOS Technology (nm) 180 90 130 180 350 350 130 350 350 90
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High Speed and Low Pedestal Error Bootstrapped CMOS... (Agung Setiabudi)