Jacob Millman, Microelectronics: Digital And Analog Circuits And Systems

System on Chip (SOC) having both digital and analog circuits has become increasingly prevalent in integrated circuit manufacturing industry. Electronic tests are classified as digital, analog and mixed signal. Current methodologies for the testing of digital circuits are well developed. In contrast, methodologies for the testing of analog circuits remain relatively underdeveloped due to the complex nature of analog signals. Compared to digital testing, analog testing lags far behind in methodologies and tools and therefore demands substantial research and development effort.

A Crash Course on Basics of CMOS Microelectronics: Design, Simulation, and Layout

The microelectronics market trends present an ever-increasing level of complexity with special emphasis on the production of complex mixed-signal systems-on-chip. Strict economic and design pressures have driven the development of new methods to automate the analog design process. However, and despite some significant research efforts, the essential act of design at the transistor level is still performed by the trial and error interaction between the designer and the simulator.

IS THE TOPIC ANALOG TESTING AND DIAGNOSIS TIMELY? Yes, indeed it is. Testing and Diagnosis is an important topic and fulfills a vital need for the electronic industry. The testing and diagnosis of digital electronic circuits has been successfuIly developed to the point that it can be automated. Unfortu­ nately, its development for analog electronic circuits is still in its Stone Age. The engineer's intuition is still the most powerful tool used in the industry! There are two reasons for this. One is that there has been no pressing need from the industry. Analog circuits are usuaIly small in size. Sometimes, the engineer's experience and intuition are sufficient to fulfill the need. The other reason is that there are no breakthrough results from academic re­ search to provide the industry with critical ideas to develop tools. This is not because of a lack of effort. Both academic and industrial research groups have made major efforts to look into this problem. Unfortunately, the prob­ lem for analog circuits is fundamentally different from and much more diffi­ cult than its counterpart for digital circuits.

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.

This book presents MOSFET-based current mode logic (CML) topologies, which increase the speed, and lower the transistor count, supply voltage and power consumption. The improved topologies modify the conventional PDN, load, and the current source sections of the basic CML gates.

Low-Power Digital VLSI Design: Circuits and Systems addresses both process technologies and device modeling. Power dissipation in CMOS circuits, several practical circuit examples, and low-power techniques are discussed. Low-voltage issues for digital CMOS and BiCMOS circuits are emphasized. The book also provides an extensive study of advanced CMOS subsystem design. A low-power design methodology is presented with various power minimization techniques at the circuit, logic, architecture and algorithm levels.

This book provides a comprehensive reference for everything that has to do with digital circuits. The author focuses equally on all levels of abstraction. He tells a bottom-up story from the physics level to the finished product level. The aim is to provide a full account of the experience of designing, fabricating, understanding, and testing a microchip. The content is structured to be very accessible and self-contained, allowing readers with diverse backgrounds to read as much or as little of the book as needed. Beyond a basic foundation of mathematics and physics, the book makes no assumptions about prior knowledge. This allows someone new to the field to read the book from the beginning. It also means that someone using the book as a reference will be able to answer their questions without referring to any external sources.