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16 June 2022
Master Thesis
Titel
Design of a Receiving Front-End Time-Gain-Compensation Amplifier with Automatic Gain Control in 0.18 µm SOI Process for an Optimized pMUT Device
Abstract
Piezoelectric micromachined ultrasonic transducers (pMUTs) have been widely developed in recent years. The current trend goes towards a monolithic ASIC (application specific integrated circuit) integration as it results in a smaller chip area and thus larger variety of applications. To reduce the development time and consequently time-to-market as well as costs, virtual prototyping in form of FEM modelling has become a standardized practice in pMUT design. In this work, a pMUT device is designed and modelled for operation in 1 MHz∼10 MHz frequency range and a suitable time-gain-compensation (TGC) amplifier with automatic gain control (AGC) to compensate for the signal attenuation is developed. The coupling between the two design domains (pMUT and ASIC) on a simulation level is achieved as well. Additionally a novel interpolation method based on analytical physics-based equations aimed towards rapid prototyping of fluid-operated pMUTs is presented. The method allows for the definition of design variants, whose resonant frequencies match the target operating frequency and extraction of an optimal design w.r.t the largest transmitting sensitivity. The proposed TGC amplifier, designed for a 5 pF capacitive load and -20 dB∼20 dB gain range, experiences 20 MHz bandwidth at the highest gain setting, ±1 dB gain linearity error and consumes a total of 2.42 mW power. Adaptive gain change implemented by the AGC feedback, decreased the overall signal dynamic range to 10.3 dB, which is by almost a factor of 30 compared to an uncompensated signal.
ThesisNote
München, TU, Master Thesis, 2022
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