Design of a CMOS Current Conveyor-Based Field-Programmable Analog Array

To date, al1 published CMOS field-programmable analog array (FPAA) designs have operated under lMHz bandwidths. This thesis develops circuit methods allowing the development of a CMOS FPAA operating at greater than lMHz frequencies. For this purpose the secondgeneration current conveyor (CCII) is used. IC test results of a O.8p-n CMOS chip containing four configurable analog blocks based on the CCII, as well as an interconnection network based on transmission gates, are presented. The test results show that bandwidths exceed IOMHz. The four CABS and interconnect occupy a core area of 1551.8 x 741.2pm2. The thesis also proposes an FPAA design based on current conveyors and similar to a commercial bipolar FPAA, but operating at higher bandwidths; as well, a novel voltage comparator based on the CClI is proposed. Many people and organizations have helped me on the road to where 1 am today. There is no space on this page to thank them all, but I do wish to mention a few. I wish to thank my supervisor Professor Glenn GuIak for his assistance and flood of great ideas. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to work with him and 1 am looking fonvard to collaborating with him in the future. Continued financial support from NSERC, Micronet, and ITRC, as well as fabrication support from CMC are much appreciated. 1 also want to thank al1 my friends and colleagues in LP392 and the EECG, and wish them well in Our chosen field. Included are Ali, Andy, Aris, Aron, Billy, Dave, Jarnil, Jason A., Jason P., Javad, Jeff, Jordan, Keith, Ken, Khalid, Marcus, Mark, Mazen, Nirmal, Qiang, Silas, Steve, Vaughn, Wai Ming, Warren, and Yaska. I wish to thank Christophe, Dean, Khoman, and Bryn for their technical advice and assistance, and Peter, Fred, and Jaro for being there when 1 needed them. My gratitude goes out to Burton, John, Mary, Sehdev, and the rest of the Massey College community for my two enjoyable years there. Morn, Dad, 1'11 be on page 104 soon. Watch out! '"Those three men,' said he, 'have carried into space al1 the resources of art, science, and industry. With that, one can do anything; and you will see that, some day, they will corne out al1 right."' -Jules Verne in Frorn the Earth to the Moon This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Greg Hartman. Table of