No abstract

A current-mode CMOS true RMS-to-DC (RMS: root-mean-square) converter with very low voltage and low power is proposed in this paper. The design techniques are based on the implicit computation and translinear principle by using CMOS transistors that operate in the weak inversion region. The circuit can operate for two-quadrant input current with wide input dynamic range (0.4–500[Formula: see text]nA) with an error of less than 1%. Furthermore, its features are very low supply voltage (0.8[Formula: see text]V), very low power consumption ([Formula: see text]0.2[Formula: see text]nW) and low circuit complexity that is suitable for integrated circuits (ICs). The proposed circuit is designed using standard 0.18[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]m CMOS technology and the HSPICE simulation results show the high performance of the circuit and confirm the validity of the proposed design technique.

This paper presents a low-power CMOS current-mode true RMS-to-DC converter based on the translinear principle of CMOS operating in a saturation region. The technique used for the design of the realization scheme was the implicit computation method. Its main conversion circuit structure consisted of a two-quadrant squaring circuit and a low-pass filter circuit. The circuit can be used with both positive and negative input signals. Simulation results were examined using the HSPICE program with model 0.18 µm BSIM3V3 level 49 TSMC CMOS process parameters. It was found that the circuit features could operate well in a wide input range (500 nA-100 µA), with low supply voltage (1.8 V), low power dissipation (0.15 µW), and a high bandwidth (50 MHz); and the error of conversion accuracy was less than 1%, well in agreement with theory.