A 0.18 μm CMOS LDO Regulator for an On-Chip Sensor Array Impedance Measurement System

Jorge Pérez-Bailón; Alejandro Márquez; Belén Calvo; Nicolás Medrano

doi:10.3390/s18051405

A 0.18 μm CMOS LDO Regulator for an On-Chip Sensor Array Impedance Measurement System

Sensors (Basel). 2018 May 2;18(5):1405. doi: 10.3390/s18051405.

Authors

Jorge Pérez-Bailón¹, Alejandro Márquez², Belén Calvo³, Nicolás Medrano⁴

Affiliations

¹ Group of Electronic Design, Aragon Institute for Engineering Research, I3A, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain. jorgepb@unizar.es.
² Group of Electronic Design, Aragon Institute for Engineering Research, I3A, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain. amarquez@unizar.es.
³ Group of Electronic Design, Aragon Institute for Engineering Research, I3A, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain. becalvo@unizar.es.
⁴ Group of Electronic Design, Aragon Institute for Engineering Research, I3A, University of Zaragoza, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain. nmedrano@unizar.es.

Abstract

This paper presents a fully integrated 0.18 μm CMOS Low-Dropout (LDO) Voltage Regulator specifically designed to meet the stringent requirements of a battery-operated impedance spectrometry multichannel CMOS micro-instrument. The proposed LDO provides a regulated 1.8 V voltage from a 3.6 V to 1.94 V battery voltage over a −40 °C to 100 °C temperature range, with a compact topology (<0.10 mm² area) and a constant quiescent current of only 7.45 μA with 99.985% current efficiency, achieving remarkable state-of-art Figures of Merit (FoMs) for the regulating⁻transient performance. Experimental measurements validate its suitability for the target application, paving the way towards the future achievement of a truly portable System on Chip (SoC) platform for impedance sensors.

Keywords: CMOS analog integrated circuits; impedance spectroscopy; low dropout regulator (LDO); sensor array.