A Compact and Power-Efficient Noise Generator for Stochastic Simulations

Abstract

This paper describes an adaptive noise generator circuit suitable for on-chip simulations of stochastic chemical kinetics. The circuit uses amplified BJT white noise and adaptive low-pass filtering to emulate the power spectrum and auto-correlation of random telegraph signals (RTS) with Poisson-distributed level transitions. A current-mode implementation in the IHP 0.25 µm BiCMOS process shows excellent agreement with theoretical results from the Gillespie stochastic simulation algorithm over a 60 dB range in mean current levels (modeling molecule count numbers). The circuit has an estimated layout area of 0.01 mm2 and typically consumes 100 µA, which are 10× and 8× better, respectively, than prior implementations.