A 16 Channel High-Voltage Driver with 14 Bit Resolution for Driving Piezoelectric Actuators

Abstract

Abstract-A high-voltage, 16 channel driver with a maximum voltage of 72 volt and 14 bit resolution in a high-voltage CMOS (HV-CMOS) process is presented. This design incorporates a 14 bit monotonic by design DAC together with a high-voltage complementary class AB output stage for each channel. All 16 channels are used for driving a piezoelectric actuator within the control loop of a micropositioning system. Since the output voltages are static most of the time, a class AB amplifier is used, implementing voltage feedback to achieve 14 bit accuracy. The output driver consists of a push-pull stage with a builtin output current limitation and high-impedance mode. Also a protection circuit is added which limits the internal current when the output voltage saturates against the high-voltage rail. The 14 bit resolution of each channel is generated with a segmented resistor string DAC which assures monotonic by design behavior by using leapfrogging of the buffers used between segments. A diagonal shuffle layout is used for the resistor strings leading to cancellation of first order process gradients. The dense integration of 16 channels with high peak currents results in crosstalk, countered in this design by using staggered switching and re-sampling of the output voltages.

A 3-to-5 V Input, 80 Peak-to-Peak Voltage (Vpp) Output, 2.75% Total Harmonic Distortion Plus Noise (THD+N), 2.9 μF Load Piezoelectric Actuator Driver with Four-Switch Buck–Boost

“…Series of amplifier-type actuators, which typically use Class A, Class B, and Class A-B operational amplifiers to drive piezoelectric actuators, have been developed by Texas Instruments [5] and Maxim Integrated [6]. Operational amplifiers were in a dominant position during the early development stage of piezoelectric actuator drivers because of their simplicity [7][8][9]. Wireless optical power-transfer technology, based on operational amplifiers, was proposed to overcome the limitations in conventional wired electrical connections, to improve the flexibility and mobility of actuators for micro-robots [10].…”

A programmable CMOS transceiver for structural health monitoring

“…However, the size, weight, and power consumption of this approach makes it unattractive for emerging applications such as monitoring of aerospace structures [2]. This issue has been addressed using integrated piezoelectric drivers [3], [4] and flexible sheets that combine integrated circuits (ICs) and thin-film transistors for passive strain sensing [5], [6]. We propose a heterogeneous microsystem that integrates miniaturized electronics and sensors within a flexible substrate to further reduce system thickness, weight, and power, thus paving the way for scalable large-area SHM.…”