Design and Experiment of Electronically Tunable Voltage-Mode Biquad and Output Current Amplitude Oscillator

This study presents an electronically tunable configuration for the design of a voltage-mode (VM) biquad with four input terminals and three output terminals. The proposed circuit employs four operational transconductance amplifiers (OTAs) and two grounded capacitors. Depending on the selections of the four input voltage signals, all the standard filtering functions can be realized. The proposed configuration simultaneously provides VM inverting band-pass, non-inverting low-pass, and non-inverting band-reject filtering functions without any component-matching choices. It offers the features of a resistorless structure, high-input impedance, electronic control of the pole frequency and quality factor, and low active and passive sensitivities. The measured power dissipation of the biquad is 0.96 W under 32 mA constant output current. The measured 1 dB power gain compression point of the output inverting band-pass filter is −7 dBm. The measured value of the third-order intercept point is 5.136 dBm, and the measured value of the third-order intermodulation distortion is −50.83 dBc. Moreover, the measured value of the spurious-free dynamic range is 53.49 dB, and the figure-of-merit of the biquad is 268.75 × 103. In addition, an electronically controllable quadrature oscillator (QO) with amplitude of output current can be realized using the proposed biquad. The proposed electronically controllable QO can provide an amplitude modulation signal or an amplitude shift keying signal, and is widely applied in signal processing systems and electronic communication systems. PSpice simulations and experimental results are accomplished.

Operational Transconductance Amplifier-Based Electronically Controllable Memcapacitor and Meminductor Emulators

In this paper, two simple circuits are presented to emulate both memcapacitor and meminductor circuit elements. The emulation of these components has crucial importance since obtaining these high-order elements from markets is difficult when compared to resistor, capacitor and inductor. For this reason, we proposed Multi-Output Operational Transconductance Amplifier (MO-OTA)-based electronically controllable memcapacitor and meminductor circuits. To operate the MOS transistor as a capacitor, drain and source terminals are connected to each other. The memcapacitor behavior is obtained by driving the connected terminals with suitable voltage values. Only a few active and grounded passive components which are found in markets easily are used to emulate meminductive behavior. Furthermore, all passive elements in the circuit are grounded. All simulation results for memcapacitor and meminductor emulators are obtained successfully when compared to previous studies. For all analyses, MO-OTA is laid using the Cadence Spectre Analog Environment with TSMC 0.18[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m process parameters and occupied a layout area of only 86.21[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m.

Electronically Tunable First Order AP/LP and LP/HP Filter Topologies Using Electronically Controllable Second Generation Voltage Conveyor (CVCII)

In this paper two new first order filter topologies realizing low-pass/all-pass (LP/AP) and low-pass/high-pass (LP/HP) outputs using electronically controllable second generation voltage conveyors (CVCIIs) are presented. Unlike second generation voltage conveyors (VCII), in CVCII each performance parameter, including ports, parasitic impedances, current and/or voltage gains can be electronically varied. Here, in particular, the proposed filter topologies are based on two CVCIIs, one resistor and one capacitor. In the first topology VLP/IAP/VAP and in the second topology ILP/VLP/IHP/VHP outputs are achievable, respectively. However, the current and voltage outputs are not achievable simultaneously and a floating capacitor is used. A control current (Icon) is used to change the first CVCII Y port impedance, which sets the filter −3 dB frequency (F0) of all the outputs. Moreover, in the second topology, the gains of HP and AP outputs are electronically adjusted by means of a control voltage (Vcon). Favorably, no restricting matching condition is necessary. PSpice simulations using 0.18 µm CMOS technology and supply voltages of ±0.9V show that by changing Icon from 0.5 µA to 50 µA, F0 is varied from 89 kHz to 1 MHz. Similarly, for a Vcon variation from −0.9 V to 0.185 V, the gains of IAP and IHP vary from 30 dB to 0 dB and those of VAP and VHP vary from 100 dB to 20 dB. The total harmonic distortion (THD) is about 8%. The power consumption is from 0.385 mW to 1.057 mW.

PyroMEMS as Future Technological Building Blocks for Advanced Microenergetic Systems

For the past two decades, many research groups have investigated new methods for reducing the size and cost of safe and arm-fire systems, while also improving their safety and reliability, through batch processing. Simultaneously, micro- and nanotechnology advancements regarding nanothermite materials have enabled the production of a key technological building block: pyrotechnical microsystems (pyroMEMS). This building block simply consists of microscale electric initiators with a thin thermite layer as the ignition charge. This microscale to millimeter-scale addressable pyroMEMS enables the integration of intelligence into centimeter-scale pyrotechnical systems. To illustrate this technological evolution, we hereby present the development of a smart infrared (IR) electronically controllable flare consisting of three distinct components: (1) a controllable pyrotechnical ejection block comprising three independently addressable small-scale propellers, all integrated into a one-piece molded and interconnected device, (2) a terminal function block comprising a structured IR pyrotechnical loaf coupled with a microinitiation stage integrating low-energy addressable pyroMEMS, and (3) a connected, autonomous, STANAG 4187 compliant, electronic sensor arming and firing block.