Institute of Microelectronics

Integrated Interface Circuits (SS)

Educational objectives

The intent of this course is to teach the understanding of integrated interface circuits to the "real world". For this, the course will look into 3 major parts, which is sensor interface circuits, analog/digital interface circuits as well as biomedical interface circuits.

On the basic side, the most relevant noise sources in sensors and sensor readout electronics are analyzed to be able to predict their effect on the achievable signal noise ratios. Various sensor and transducer principles are explained together with their appropriate readout electronic circuits. Thereby, both open-loop and closed-loop readout concepts are applied.

Measures and analysis of A/D and D/A converters is presented. Thereupon, a deeper overview of various ADC and DAC structures is given with an emphasis on their state of the art achievements. A closer investigation is then done on the concept of discrete-time and continuous-time noise-shaping Sigma-delta ADCs and of charge redistribution SAR ADC.

  1. Motivation and example sensor Applications
  2. Sensors and Sensor Interface Circuits
    • Noise in sensor interface circuits
    • Transducers
    • Bandgap references and integrated temperature sensors
    • Resistive and inductive readouts circuits
    • Capacitive readouts circuits, open and closed loop concepts, force feedback
    • Autozeroing, Chopping, Correlated Double Sampling
  3. Analog/Digital Interfaces
    • Quantization and Sampling
    • Spectral Metrics
    • DAC overview
    • Nyquist and oversampling DACs
    • ADC overview
    • Comparators
    • SAR ADC
    • Oversampling (Sigma-Delta) ADC
    • Time-to-digital converts
  4. Biomedical Interface Circuits
    • Excitable cells and biosignals
    • Overview on microelectrodes, biocompatibility, packaging
    • Telemetry and inductive powering
    • Neural recording, stimulation and modulation cicuits and systems
    • Charge Balancing Strategies
    • Applications: Cardiac devices, Neuromuscular simulators,
    • Gastrointestinal devices and obesitytreatment, Drug delivery devices and infusion pumps, Diabetes treatment, Rehabilitation Engineering
    • Examples for implantable biosensors