One-Shot Voltage-Measurement Circuit Utilizing Process Variation

A novel voltage measurement circuit which utilizes process variation is proposed. Using the proposed circuit, the voltage of a nonperiodic waveform at a particular time point can be accurately captured by a single clock pulse (one-shot measurement). The proposed circuit can be designed without compensation circuits against process variation, and thus occupies only a small area. An analytical expression of offset voltage for the comparator utilizing process variation (UPV-comparator), which plays a key role in the proposed circuit, is derived and design considerations for the proposed circuit are discussed. The circuit operation is confirmed through SPICE simulation using 90nm CMOS device models. The -0.04 and -3dB bandwidths (99% and 50% amplitudes) of the proposed circuit are about 10MHz and far over 1GHz, respectively. The circuit area is also estimated using an experimental layout.