A 3-decade-frequency-range Sinewave Synthesizer with Analog Piecewise-linear Interpolation

Abstract

In this work, we present a novel approach for the on-chip synthesis of sinusoidal signals for low-size and low-power applications. The original aspect of the proposed solution is the ability to generate linearly interpolated signals by means of analog interpolation. This gives rise to notable distortion performances with a low circuit complexity. The potentiality of the proposed approach was verified by means of electrical simulations performed on a prototype designed with a standard $0.18\mu{\mathrm m}$ CMOS process. A THD as low as 0.59%, calculated considering also the aliasing effect implied by the linear interpolation, was obtained at a 100 kHz sinewave frequency. The power consumption is around 300 $\mu{\mathrm W}$. The possibility of varying the sinewave frequency in a 3-decade wide range was also assessed. Results obtained from 50 Monte Carlo runs at $f_{0}=100 {\mathrm kHz}$ indicated a worst-case THD around 1.3%.