A 42.3 μm² Band to Band Tunneling-Based Oscillator Enabled Temperature to Digital Converter With Resolution FoM of 0.16 pJK² for Embedded Temperature Sensing

Abstract

In advanced high-speed integrated systems, the widely distributed and proliferation of temperature sensors to detect hotspots improve the robustness and reliability of the system by preventing overheating. Low area and low energy consumption are essential for integrated temperature sensors in such applications. The fabricated oscillator has a ten times less footprint than state-of-the-art temperature sensing cores ( $42.3~\mu {\mathrm { m}}^{2} $ ) and enables low energy temperature to the digital converter (0.32 nJ energy/conversion) in GF45RFSOI technology. The proposed oscillator facilitates an area and energy-efficient temperature sensor (20 °C to 90 °C) with a simple counter-based digital readout with a best-in-class resolution figure of merit of 0.16 pJK2.