Sub‐nanoampere‐sensitivity current comparatorbased temperature sensor with bucket searching algorithm

Abstract

This Letter presents a new real‐time and compact current‐mode temperature sensor for system‐on‐chip thermal monitoring. The proposed temperature sensor provides a low‐cost readout scheme that utilises a current switching comparator and dual‐control bucket searching algorithm. It does not require an ADC or charged capacitor with large area and power dissipation. The dynamic element matching and threshold‐setting techniques are employed to further increase the accuracy of the proposed sensor. It is fabricated with a standard 55 nm CMOS process, achieves an accuracy of 0.5°C while occupying a silicon area of 0.021 thinmathspacenormalmm2, and consumes 75 thinmathspaceμW with a 6.5 thinmathspaceμs conversion time.