IEEEJOURiVALOF SOLID-STATE
CIRCUITS,VOL.SC-7, NO, 2, .APRIL1972
A Monolithic Micropower
PETE H. HUDSON, iYIE~IBERj
IEEE, ANDJAMES D, MEINDL,
Absfracf—The use of battery-operated chronically implanted
telemetry systems in biomedical instrumentation is growing rapidly.
In many cases the flexibility and operating lifetime of these systems
is severely limited by the capacity of the power source. This paper
describes the theory of operation, design, fabrication technology,
and performance of a micropower command receiver that can extend
the operating lifetime of an implanted telemetry system to the shelf
life of its battery by disconnecting the power source when the system
is not in use. The command receiver consists of an RF amplifier, an
AM detector, and an audio amplifier. It has a sensitivity of better
than 100 pV and a total power dissipation of less than 15 PW. It
operates from a single 1.35-V mercury cell and is fabricated entirely
on a single silicon chip. The only necessary off-the-chip components
are the antenna and the battery.
INTRODUCTION
HE telemetering of physiological information
from electric sensors implanted within the bodies
T
of men and animals has been progressing rapidly
since the first transistorized system was developed [1].
Battery-operated systems have since been used for
measuring gastrointestinal pressure [2] ~ hydrogen-ion
concentrations [3], internal body temperatures [4],
and for obtaining various other physiological data.
The availability of custom integrated circuits enor-
mously expands the potential capabilities of implanted
biomedical systems [5], [6]. The size and weight of in-
tegrated circuits allow the assemblage of complex telem-
etry systems that would otherwise be prohibitively
large for implantation. Because of the large number of
active elements in a complex system, the power require-
ment of the system is also large. Consequently, the size
and weight advantages of integrated circuits can be off-
set by large power-supply requirements if system life-
times greater than a few days are desired. Power-supply
requirements can often be reduced by several orders of
magnitude in those systems that do not require con-
tinuous operation simply by disconnecting the power
source when the system is not in use [7]. The circuit
that can accomplish this ON-OFswitching function is a
command receiver. However, since the command re-
ceiver must be on continuously its power dissipation
must be as small as possible.
Manuscript received September 1, 1971; revised October 1, 1971.
This work was partly supported by the Department of Health,
Education. and Welfare under PHS research Grant 5 POI
GM17!$40-02 and the U. S. Armv Electronics Command under
Contract DAAB-7-69-C-0192 “
P. H. Hudson was with the Department of Electrical Engi-
neering, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. He is now with
the Integrated Electronics Technical Area, U. S. Army Electronics
Technology and Devices Laboratory (ECOM), Fort Monmouth,
N. J. 07703.
J. D. Meindl is with the Stanford Integrated Circuits Labora-
tory, Stanford University, Stanford, Calif. 94305.
125
Command Receiver
FELLOW,IEEE
In order for the command receiver to be useful with a
wide variety of implantable systems, its primary re-
quirements are 1) very low current drain, 2) operation
from a single 1.35-V mercury cell, 3) completely mono-
lithic construction, 4) a sensitivity of better than 100
,uV; and 5 ) to provide an cmtput signal of 500 mV upon
receiving a command transmission.
A receiver carrier frequency of 500 kHz (in the dis-
tress calling band) is chosen in order to avoid strong in-
terference signals and to minimize power drain. The re-
ceiver is tuned with a high Q ferrite core antenna, which
is optimized for maximum gain at 500 kHz. The tuned
antenna also provides sufficient selectivity for most ap-
plications, However, the effect of additional selectivity
is achieved with a “signal qualifying” feature obtained
by using an AIJ!t receiver with relatively narrow-band
audio amplification. That is, both the carrier and ampli-
tude modulation frequencies must be present in order for
the receiver to respond. A ceramic filter with the desired
passband characteristics can be used if additional selec-
tivity is required.
Because of its small size, low current drain, ancl sin-
gle-cell (1.35-V) operation, there are many potential ap-
plications for the command receiver in chronically inl-
planted biomedical systems. A command receiver can be
used not only for controlling the power to implanted elec-
tronics, but also for selecting a par~icular body function
for monitoring. For example, by using an appropriately
coded command signal, selective monitoring of body
temperature, blood flow rate, blood pressure, or heart rate
is possible. This paper describes the theory of operation
design, fabrication technology, and performance of a
general-purpose monolithic command receiver that is
optimized to satisfy the unique requirements of bio-
medical systems.
COMPARISON OF RECEIVER CONFIGURATIONS
The first problem in the design of a general-purpose
monolithic command receiver is to find the optimum
receiver configuration that satisfies the performance re-
quiretnents of the command system and is suitable for
integration on a single silicon chip. Requiring the re-
ceiver to be completely monolithic effectively eliminates
many potential receiver configurations from considera-
tion due to the difficulty of obtaining the inductor func-
tion. The requirement for low power dissipation dictates
that high-frequency signal processing be held to a mini-
mum.
Block diagrams of two receiver configurations that of-
fer the most promise for integration on a single silicon
chip are shown in Fig. 1. Both receiver models are tuned
126 IEEE JOURNALOF SOLID-STATECIRCUITS,APRIL 1972

MOOEL - I
of the iterative stage are given by
AM PLITUOE MOOULATED – TUNEO RF RECEIVER

Au. = —L”——— (1)

RF AM AUDIO PEAK DC l/RC + gm/h,eo
AMPLIFIER DETECTOR AMPLIFIER DETECTOR LWTPUT
and

ii?. + gm/h,eo
w. = —–——— (2)
K,RC + C,, + C;

MOOEL - 2 where
CW-TUNED RF RECEIVER
v
q., = lc/Y ~ = lcT/q K,RG = CR,
RF Oc
AMPLIFIER OUTPUT
and

I-.iu Cin = C,. + (1 + At;o)Cc.

Fig. 1. Block diagrams of two receiver configurations

x
The overall gain and cutoff frequency of the n-stage
I
amplifier are [10]

I A,,.* = (.4,.)*’ (3)

‘b I

and
I
I
UC* = [~
y/n – 11”2 @c Q @c/1.2& (4)
I
. —

respectively; multiplying ( 1) by (2), solving for Ic,

(a)
and combining with (3) and (4) gives

>1 I.* = ??Ic = [1.2@C*(n)3’2(AaO*)’’”][K.R. + C.. + Ci.1 (5)

+ for the total quiescent current of an n-stage amplifier
that must provide a specified voltage gain and band-
width. The optimum number of stages for minimum
quiescent current drain is found by setting d Ic*/d n in
(b) (5) equal to zero. This gives [9] ~ in Ao,”’ < Wpt < 4/3
Fig. 2. Iterative amplifier circuit diagrams. (a) Ac schematic in Aoo+. The resulting optimum gain per stage is between
diagram. (b) Hybrid-r model.
2.12 and 4.5; typically about 3.o.
The power requirements of receiver model 2 can be
RF (TRF) receivers. Model 1 requires an amplitude- determined directly from (5). Since the command re-
modulated (AM ) RF input signal and model 2 functions ceiver is to have a sensitivity of 100 p V and provide a
with an unmodulated continuous-wave (CW) input sig- peak output voltage of 500 mV its overall voltage gain
nal. The major advantages offered by TRF receivers is 3.53 x 103 or 71 dB. The quiescent current required
over other potential configurations are 1) there are no to achieve this gain with
image frequencies, 2) power dissipation is minimized
because IF amplifiers and local oscillators are not re- ~.” = u,*/2n = 500 kHz
quired, and 3) all essential tuning circuitry can be
incorporated in the receiving antenna. Model 1 consists C,. = C. = 1.5pF
of an RF amplifier, AM detector, audio amplifier, and
peak detector for the audio signal to provide a change Cc, = 1.0 pF
in output level. Model 2 consists of a chain of broad-
band and RF amplifiers with peak detection of the RF
h,eo = 100
signal to provide a dc output.
K, = 1.6 X 10-’ pF/kfl (6)
The ac schematic diagram of an iterative stage ampli-
fier and a small signal equivalent circuit for the iterative is 74 pA for n z 3; 35.5 PA for n = 4, and 21.2 PA with
stage are shown in Fig. 2. In Fig. 2 (b) the transistor is an optimum number of 7 stages.
represented by a simplified hybrid “pi” model [8], [9] ; In order to evaluate the power requirement of receiver
C’nc represents the stray capacitance of Rc; Cc. repre- model 1, the conversion voltage gain and noise figure of
sents the transistor’s collector–substrate capacitance; and the AM detector used in this configuration must first be
Cill the input capacitance to the following transistor. determined. A schematic diagram and small-signal model
The midband voltage gain and 3-dB cutoff frequency for an AM detector is shown in Fig. 3 [8], [9]. The
 HUDSONAND MEINDL: MICROPOWER
COMMANDRECEIVER
RF AMPLIFIER DETECTOR I Auo,o AMPL,F,ER
I [
m~
9’m = ~y9m
(b)
Fig. 3. Circuit diagrams of the AM detector in receiver model 1.
(a) Ac schematic diagram. (b) Small signal model.
conversion voltage gain of the detector is defined by
A.d = :*?
8
where V. (~~) is the component of output voltage at the
modulation frequency and v, (o,) is the component of
the input signal voltage
v.(t) = V.(1 + m sin a.,t) sin cd.t
at the carrier frequency ~, [12]. From Fig. 3 (b) the
conversion voltage gain of the detector is
where A. is given by (1). In the command receiver the
modulation frequency is also the audio frequency. Con-
sequently, the detector can be considered as the first of
an iterative chain of audioamplifying stages if the de-
tection-conversion factor mV,/2y is reflected to the de-
tector’s input. That is, the detector nonlinearity can be
effectively accounted for simply by defining an equiv-
alent input voltage
mV, m
e=————
ea 27 ‘“ = ti#2”
In (10) e,~ is the voltage required at the input of the
detector to produce the same audio output as the modu-
lated signal v, and represents the effective reduction of
signal strength due to the detection process. In a con-
ventional superheterodyne AM receiver v. is typically
larger than y so that e~a approximately equals vs. In a
TRF micropowcr receiver v. should be as small as possi-
ble in order to minimize the number of high frequency
— amplifying stages preceding the detector. The minimum
value of the input signal is limited by the detector’s
noise figure.
In the Appendix it is shown that the noise figure of a
127
detector is approximately the same as the midband noise
~ figure of an amplifier and given by [9], [13] :
1. (Ra + 7L,.JIC)’
Fo=l+%I~i R.q +-- (11)
2~h,, .2 R,
when the source resistance is much greater than the
transistor’s base-spreading resistance. Equation (11 ) in-
dicates that the detector’s noise figure is less than 2 with
I. = 1 ,PA for 10 k ~ < R. <6 MQ and hf.. = 100. How-
ever, in most cases the detector’s equivalent input noise
still places a lower limit on the minimum, RF voltage
gain and the power required by receiver model 1.
The minimum equivalent input signal voltage to the
detector for a specified output signal-to-noise ratio is
e., (rein) = (4kT’BR,) ‘“F. (LS’/N)..,. (12)
Using (10) this corresponds to a minimum signal voltage
1/2
d-f
u,(min) = –m– (41cTBR,)’’2Fo(S/N) 0., . (13)
[ 1
(7) For example, with (S/N),OUt= 2, R, = 100 k~, F. = 2,
13= fw=lkHz, m=l, and4kT= 1.6x l&20 (T=
293°C), (13) gives
o.(min) = 380 wV.
(8) The minimum total quiescent collector current required
by the two receiver configurations is displayed in Fig. 4
as a function of receiver sensitivity for an RF carrier
frequency of 500 kHz and an audio frequency of 1
kHz. The two sets of curves for model 1 correspond to
(9) RF amplifier gains of 10 and 100. The maximum sensi-
tivity points show the input signal required for an out-
put signal-to-noise ratio of 2 and for model 1 correspond
to a detector input signal of about 400 p,V. These curves
demonstrate that a receiver configuration employing audio
detection requires less power than configurations employ-
ing broad-band RF amplification and peak RF detection.
For example, with a sensitivity of 100 ,pV, receiver model
1 with an RF gain of 10 requires less than 20 percent of
the power of model 2.
The previous analysis is based on the assumption that
(lo) little or no power is required by amplifier biasing net-
works. An amplifier configuration that approximately sat-
isfies this assumption is discussed next.
THE GAIN CELL
The requirement that the command receiver operates
from a single 1.35-V mercury cell with minimum current
drain prompted the development of the two-stage am-
plifier or “gain cell” shown in Fig. 5. The gain cell serves
as the basic building block of the command receiver. It
functions as a 500-kHz RF amplifier, an audio am-
plifier, or an AM detector by selecting appropriate values
for the collector load resistors and coupling capacitors.
The interstage coupling capacitor is omitted except when
 128 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, APRIL 1972

active transistors have equal junction capacitances and

current gains that are large compared to one. ln addition
to the normal hybrid-~ elements the model contains the
following parasitic capacitances:

c 1s1 substrate parasitic capacitances of QI

and the two coupling transistors,
C.., and C.,, substrate parasitic capacitances of c.,
and C.,, respectively, ,
M.,

c. junction capacitance of the field-effect

load resistors,
c t,z substrate parasitic capacitance of QZ.
, I I
II
10 100 1000 The load of the cell represented by Gf, and CI, is gen-
RECEIVER SENSITIVITY (PV )
eral; however, in an iterative chain of gain cells the
Fig. 4. Quiescent collector current versus receiver sensitivity, load consists of the input admittance of the first stage.
In order to determine values for the clernents in the
model, a specific geometry and fabrication technology
must be considered. A circuit layout based on minimum
area rectangular geometry devices with a minimum line-
width and spacing between lines of W is shown in Fig. 7.
In order to conserve area and minimize parasitic capac-
itance the diode connecteci coupling transistors share a
common p-type (base) diffused region and the coupling
capacitors consist of emitter-base and collector–base
junction capacitors in parallel.
The transistor areas, At.l = 13W x 23W and At,2 =
13W X llW, are used for determining values for C~,l
and CW, respectively.
Values for the parasitic capacitance of the coupling
Fig, 5. Gain-cell schematic diagram.
capacitors and load resistors are obtained by assuming
that the parasitic areas, and consequently the parasitic
the gain cell is used as an RF amplifier. The salient fea- values, are directly proportional to the element values.
tures of the gain cell are the following. That is, C’v,,l = K, C’PI, C“~,z = K, CP3, and Cl{ =
1) Diode biasing is used to avoid the need for pro- K,RCW’. When the background resistivity is 5 ~. cm
hibitively high value resistors. K,. = 1.7 X 10-’ pF/k~. W2 [11].
2) It employs monolithic coupling capacitors. In order to indicate the effects of integrated circuit
3) It has a midband voltage gain that is relatively fabrication technologies on the equiescent current re-
insensitive to resistor tolerance. quirements of the command receiver the RF gain cell’s
4) Essentially no power is wasted in biasing net- overall voltage gain at 500 kHz is plotted in Fig. 8 as a
works. function of quiescent current for three linewidths and
5) It provides two stages of amplification using only background resistivities. The current required to achieve
three isolation wells. a given gain decreases monotonically with the technology
Excessively large value resistors are avoided by using that produces the smallest junction capacitance. Fig. 8
diode-connected transistors DI and Dg to supply base demonstrates that a key feature of micropower design
current to the active transistors Q1 and Qz. The collector is to achieve the lowest possible values of junction capaci-
resistors Rcl and Roz are base field-effect resistors with tance by using small geometry devices and high resistivity
the gates shorted to the source and are used both as load material. For example, the current required to achieve a
resistors and to establish the operating point of the voltage gain of 20 dB can be reduced from about 15 to 1.5
active transistor stages.VBE matching
The excellent pA by reducing minimum linewidths from 10 to 5 ~ and
among the diode connected and active transistors insures increasing background resistivities from 1 to 10 0. cm.
that the quiescent collector currents of the two stages Fig. 9 displays a plot of the current required for the
are essentially equal. iterative RF cell to achieve 15 dB of gain at 500 kHz as a
function of Iinewidth and provides a further illustration
Gain Cell Small Signal Model and Integrated-Circuit
of the influence of fabrication technology on the quiescent
Typo loqy.
current requirements of the RF cell. The solid curves
‘I’he small signal model for the gain cell shown in Fig. display the current requirements of junction-isolated all-
6 is obtained by assuming that the diode connected and diffused structures. The dashed curves were obtained by
HUDSON AND MEINDL : MICROPOWER COMMAND RECEIVER 129

rhe
.. r be

c be cbe
[\ +&--

cc Cpl cc CP2
It II Ii 1)

cb~ ?= .J !“$ >.

‘be ‘be 9m’%e ~ 7ct~lz - grnvb~~
Jc ,~2-‘RC CR CPS2 ‘L CL
(

Fig. 6. Gain-cell small-signal model.

Rc
single-stage amplifier voltage gains at 500 kHz is dis-
played in Fig. 10 as a function of quiescent current for
10-p linewidths and 5-Q” cm background materials. The a
and b curves correspond to voltage gains of the gain cell
and single-stage amplifier, respectively. For quiescent
currents greater than 5 pA the gain cell provides > 6 dB
more gain than the single-stage amplifier.

The Iterative Gain Cell As An Audio Amplifier

13W
k23W—————— 4 5W
ISOLATION DIFFUSION
R BASE DIFFuSION
Iz2 EMITTER DIFFUSION
Fig. 7. Gain-cell integrated-circuit layout.
assuming a fabrication technology that eliminates collec-
tor–substrate, coupling capacitor, and resistor parasitic
capacitances. This condition can be approached by using
dielectric or beam-lead isolation with thin-film compon-
ents deposited on very thick oxides. The power savings
resulting from this technology is about a factor of 2.
Another feature of the RF cell’s voltage gain-quiescent
current characteristic is that the voltage gain is essentially
constant for large values of bias current, This is illus-
trated in Fig. 8 by the three curves that exhibit voltage
gain maxima within the current range considered. Con-
sequently, the gain of the RF cell can be made relatively
insensitive to bias conditions by increasing the current
drain that is achieved with reduced values of load re-
sistance.
Some applications may require amplifiers with a higher
input impedance than that achieved with the gain cell.
For these cases, the first stage of the gain cell can be used
as a biasing network and the input signal applied directly
to the base of Qz. A comparison of iterative gain cell and
In theory the minimum power requirements of the
gain cell, when used as an audio amplifier, can be obtained
simply by dividing the current axis in Fig. 8 by the ratilo
of the RF to audio frequencies. If the audio frequency is
of the order of 1 kHz, the audio gain cell will require
L Zwd
about 500 times less power than the RF cell. However,
the required values of collector load resistors in the audio
cell will be about 500 times greater than the values in the
RF cell. In most cases, such large resistance values (about
50 Mo) require 20–50 times the area of a transistor. For
example, with field-effect resistors having sheet resistiv-
ities of 50 kO/square, Rc = 50 Mfl requires 1000 squares
and the transistor base requires 35 squares. Consequently,
in the following analysis we somewhat arbitrarily limit
consideration to resistors that require about the same area
as transistors, i.e., to resistor values of about 1.5 Mo.
With Rc = 1.5 MQ the quiescent current per stage is
300 nA. In most cases this current is much less than the
current required by the RF gain cell.
For use as an audio amplifier the basic gain cell of Fig.
5 is modified by the addition of an emitter-follower output
stage. The emitter-follower significantly reduces the load
on the second stage that would occur due to Miller mul-
tiplication of the following gain cell’s input admittance.
The overall voltage gain of an iterative audio amplifier,
obtained by adding an emitter–follower output to Fig. 6,
is plotted in Fig. 11 as a function of frequency for CP =
25, 50, 75, and 100 pF, Rc = 1.5 M~, a linewidth of
10 p, and a background resistivity of 50” cm. The curves
show that the maximum voltage gain increases mono-
tonically with CO and that the frequency for maximum
gain is inversely proportional to the square root of CP.
These features and the general shape of the frequency-
response curves are typical of circuits with a single real
130 IEEE JOURNAI, OF SOLiD-STATE CIRCUITS, APRIL 1972
! 1 1 1 1 1 1

—_—— —————————
_—————

//”—
1! / /“L’op
=10$2-cm

1
‘BC
5fl-cm
/ /
/ / /$ w=15p-
I .&cm
/’ //
/
/
,/;

1[
/./

/
2
1/ 1
4 6
1
8
1
10
1
12 14
1
16
ICC (microamps)

Fig. 8. RF cell voltage gain at 500 kHz versus quiescent current for several fabrication technologies.

30 1 r 1
pole and zero and suggest that the audio gain cell can be
/ !’
represented by the simplified model shown in Fig. 12. The
simplified model neglects all losses except voltage division
25 -
between the coupling capacitor and first-stage input re-
sistance and voltage division between the interstage diode
resistance and the second-stage input impedance, Losses 20 -
through the emitter-follower and all 10SSCSdue to para-
sitic capacitances are neglected. %
~
The audio cell’s voltage gain, as found from the sim- .-“ 15 -
E
plified model, is given by -i
.0

(14) [0

where 5
2 AO
i
AO = g.RC 01 1 1 1 1 I
““ = A. CJ-,. “ = ~z” 0 5 10 15 20 25
LINEWIDTH (microns)
For the range of coupling capacitance values considered
Fig, 9. Quiescent current versus linewidth,
in Fig. 11 U, is less than 02, which corresponds to capaci-
tive broad-banding. The midband voltage gain is given
by the coupling capacitor is specified the audio cell’s voltage
gain increases monotonically with increasing values of
CP and with decreasing values of collector–base capaci-
A,. = AU(U = COO)
= ——A&’—— - (15)
tance.
2+ A02$’
P An approximate upper limit for the coupling capacitor
where can be determined by finding the value for which the
capacitive susceptance equals the first-stage input con-
ductance. That is, when

(17)
Equation (15) indicates that when the value for
 HUDSONAND MEINDL: MICROPOWER COMMAND RECEIVER
131
, 1 1 I (

30
1

25 - a

*
:
z 20 -
z
c1
w
w
a
~ [5 -
0
>

10-

5-

n 1 1 I 1 1 I 1
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

. Icc (mlcroamps)

Fig. 10. Comparison of gain-cell and single-stage amplifier voltage gains. Curve a displays the gain of an iterative gain
cell, Curve b shows the gain of an iterative single-stage amplifier.

‘be I API,A
h ~p.—..——— Ao= gmRc
‘m Vc!

Fig. 12. Simplified model of the audio cell.

capacitor area would then be equal to about seven tran-

2 4 6 s 10
FREQUENCY (kHz)
Fig. 11. Audio gain versus frequency for several values of
coupling capacitance.
theaudio cell’sgain will no longer increase linearly with
increasing CP. Substituting (16) into (17) gives CP >
(A02) CC/2. Consequently, C, must be greater than about
200 pF in most cases in order for the audio cell’s voltage
gain to be independent of CP and to achieve its maximum
value of A02,/2 = 46 dB. This value of monolithic capaci-
.’ tance is unrealistically large for most applications.
A more realistic upper limit can be derived by limit-
ing the maximum capacitance area to the area of the
remainder of the gain cell. With equal resistor and tran-
sistor areas, Fig. 7 shows that the maximum coupling
sistor areas or 1001 W2 units and the total audio gain-cell
area is then about 2000 W2 units. For example, with
W = 10p the audio cell area is about 2 x 105 p2 or about
18 X 18 roils. The value for C@ with W = 10 p are 38
Is
pF, 53 pF, and 124 pF for background resistivities of 10,
5, and 1 Qscm, respectively. Fig. 11 shows that with any
of the above conditions the maximum voltage gain is 30
dB. The maximum voltage gain of the audio cell is pri-
marily determined by the ratio of CP to Cc. Since the
minimum value of C. is fixed by the technology, the
voltage gain of the audio cell is primarily determined by
the area allocated for C,. The major influence of the load
resistors is to determine the frequency at which the
maximum gain occurs.
THE GAIN CELL As A DETECTOR
It was previously shown that a detector can be treated
as an iterative stage in an audioamplifying chain by
defining the equivalent input voltage given in (10). In (10)
132 IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, APRIL 1972

e.~ is an equivalent input voltage at the audio frequency

that produces the same detector output as the actual
‘“~
RF input v. and represents the effect detector nonlin- 40 -

earities have on the input signal. Since the detector is

%
schematically the same as the audio amplifier its con- : 30 - [26]
~
version gain can be obtained simply by multiplying the
,;.
u
audio amplifier’s gain by mv,/y@. : 20 -
The power dissipation of the command receiver is ~
0
[k] [4]
>
limited by the minimum gain required in the RF amplifier.
10-
Th,e mim~mum RF amplifier gain for a specified sensitivity
is in turn limited by a requirement that the equivalent I 1 1 1 I I I I
o~
input signal voltage to the detector be greater than the 50 100 150 200
Rc(kllohms)
detector’s equivalent input noise voltage.
Simplified expressions for the detector’s equivalent input Fig. 13. RF cell voltage gain versus load resistance. Optimum
noise voltage may be obtained using the following approxi- coupling capacitor values are in parentheses. Quiescent currents
are in brackets. Curve a is for optimum values of CP~and Cp~.
mations. Curve b is for c,, = C,, = 12 pJ?.
1) Input noise with frequency components outside the
audio band are negligible. This requires rev./y@ << 1.
For a technology utilizing 10-P linewidths the equiva-
2) ‘$ansistor current gains are large compared to 1.
lent rms input noise voltages are 16 and 29 ~V for Case 1,
3) The base-spreading resistance T, is small compared
and 2.3 and 4 pV for Case 2 for background resistivities of
to the incremental junction resistance’ r~..
1 and 100. cm, respectively. Since the peak output signal
Two input terminations of interest to the command re-
of the command receiver is 500 mV, the magnitude of the
ceiver are as follows.
equivalent noise voltages can be thought. of as placing an
Case 1: With the input open, this case corresponds to the
upper limit on the receivers audio gain. For example, if
situation where the coupling capacitor from the RF gain
the rms input noise voltage is 26 pV and an output signal-
cell (Coz in Fig. 5) is chosen to maximize the RF anlpli-
to-noise ratio greater than 2 (6 dB ) is desired, then the
fier gain at the carrier frequency. The value of the capac-
maximum allowable audio gain the detector and audio-
itor is typically about 10 pF, which is an effective open
amplifier gain cells can have is 6.8 x 103 or 76.5 dB.
circuit at the audio frequency.
With an overall audio gain of 76 dB the equivalent
Case 2: With the input shorted, this case corresponds
input signal voltage to the detector for a receiver output
to the situation where the input to the detector is tuned
of 500 mV is 79.5 pV. Assuming 80 percent. modulation,
to the carriir frequency and consequently appears as a
the actual RF input signal given by (10) is 1.8 mV. Con-
short circuit to frequencies in the audio band. This is
sequently, in order for the receiver to have a sensitivity of
the best possible situation for any low-noise amplifier be-
100 ,PV, the RF amplifiers must provide a voltage gain
cause there ‘is no loss of signal and all input. n~ise sources
of 18 or about 25 dB.
are shorted.
Fig. 13 displays RF cell voltage gain at 500 kHz as a
The noise of the detector can be represented by an
function of Rc when a detector gain cell is the load. The
equivalent input noise voltage [9] given by
a curve was obtained from (26) with CL = 1.8 pF and
z = lcTBr,, + 2kTBr,Jhf,0 (18) G~ = 0.25 ,pmho using optimum values for CPl and Cvz.
for Case 1, and The optimum values of coupling capacitance are shown
in parentheses at several points. The b curve was ob-
—.
eX2z= 21cTBr,./hj.0 (19) tained with CPI = CP2 = 12 pF, which are the values
used in the experimental receiver. A fabrication tech-
for Case 2. nology utilizing 10-,p linewidths and 5-Q. cm back-
Approximate values for the noise voltages can be ob- ground material was assumed in both bases. The
tained by noting that the bandwidth B is approximately bracketed numbers give the quiescent current drain of
twice the center frequency. Substituting (16) into (18)
the cell for various values of Rc.
and (19] with B = 2f0 and hf,o >> 1 gives
EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

(20) A complete schematic diagram of a three-cell receiver is

for the detector’s equivalent input noise voltages. Equa-
tion (20) shows that the noise voltage decreases with in-
creasing values of coupling capacitance due to the reduc-
tion @ the gain cell’s bandwidth. The analysis is
approximately valid for the range of capacitance values
considered in Fig. 11.
shown in Fig. 14. The first cell is the RF amplifier, the
second is used as an AM detector, and the third cell is an
audioamplifier. An additional output transistor has been
added to the audio cell in order to increase the receiver’s
drive capability and to provide a lower output level in
the absence of a command signal. If necessary, the selec-
tivity and output signal-to-noise ratio of the receiver can
HUDSONAND MEINDL: MICROPOWER
COMMANDRECEIVER 133

I
RF AM I AUDIO
AMPLIFIER I OETECTOR AMPLIFIER

I I
*OPTIONAL PIEZOELECTRIC TUNING FILTER
RESISTOR VALUES IN Mfl
CAPACITOR VALUES IN pF

Fig. 14. Complete schematic diagram of the three-cell receiver.

TABLE I
SUMMARY OF RECEIVER PERFORMANCE

Power Dissipation
Vcc = 1.35V Voltage Gain
(/.Lw) (dB)

RF amplifier 10.6 24
AM detector 1.4 15.
Audio amplifier 1.1 32
Total 13.1 71*

s Conversion gain.

ments in order to provide a direct measurement of the

resistor values. The coupling capacitors used in the re-
ceiver consist of M(3S and emitter–base and collector-
basejunction capacitors inparallel. ‘
The frequenc~ response of the RF cell for several
Fig. 15. Photomicrograph of a receiver chip.
values of Rc with CP1 = C’P2= 12 pF is shown in Fig.
16. Themeasured respbnse ofaunitwith Ro= 120k~is
40 1 , I 1 I 1 ,r r r I I 1 , 1 1 1 indicated by circles. The measured response differs from
..--. — __ the calculated response (with Rc = 120 kfl) by less than
---- 2 dB for frequencies less than 600 kHz.
~. \. i The measured performance of the three-cell receiver is
summarized in Table I. The test signal used for the
sensitivity measurement was a 500-kHz carrier 80 per-
cent modulated with a 3-kHz audio tone. The receivers
sensitivity for a 500-mV peak output is 87 pV and its
power dissipation is 13.1 pW.

,oL__J!!d
CONCLUSIONS

The stringent requirements placed on thd power dissi-

pation of implantable electronic systems for medical re-
20 40 60 80 100 200 400 600 800 IOOC search prompted the development of the command re-
FREcIJENCY (k Hz)
ceiver described in this paper. In order for the receiver to
Fig. 16. Calculated and measured RF cell frequency resporkse. be useful in a wide variety of a~plications, its primary
constraints are 1) low cost, 2) ‘high reliability, 3) small
be improved by adding a piezoelectric tuning filter be- size, 4) capability of operation from a single 1.35-V power
tween the RF amplifier and d~tector cells as indicated source, and 5) very low current drain. The first three con-
in Fig. 14. straints are satisfied by requiring the receiver to be
Fig. 15 is a photomicrograph of one of the receiver fabricated on a single silicon chip. The last two constraints
chips. In addition to the three gain cells the chip contains are satisfied by optimizing the receiver for operation from
test capacitors, a resistor, and a test transistor. The load a 1.35-V supply with minimum current drain.
resistors of the RF cell are tapped at 2.5 square incre- Three principal features of the procedure used in de-
.134
.. IEEE JOURNAL OF SOLID-STATE CIRCUITS, APRIL 1972

signing the command receiver are 1) selection of the —2

R ‘b *
optimum receiver configuration, 2) optimizing the back-
ground resistivity and selecting linewidths of the inte-
grated circuit structure for low parasitic capacitances,
—2 7
and 3) designing an optimum integrated-circuit amplifier ens - ‘be lb - .rbe x - 7Ic
C=cbe+Cc
(( ‘: ‘-
cell for the receiver.
T
APPENDIX ~=Wbe or 9mlvbe

DETECTOR NOISE FIGURE Fig. 17. Detector small-signal noise model

A noise equivalent circuit for the detector used in re-
ceiver model 1 is shown in Fig. 17 [9]. The mean-square so that
values of the four noise generators are
—. 2
e2
.s = 4kTBR8
e~z = 41cTBrb
(21)
(22)
W2rb,2C2(R,+ TJ2E
() w
2
w,
?“be2
<< (?”be+ R, + ?“6)2,

Q. >> u..
ibz = 2qBI, (23)
—. Equation (26) may be approximated by
i.2 = 2qBIc (24)
The noise figure F is defined as the ratio of the total
output noise current to the output noise current due
to R,, alone. In a detector, the output noise consists —-
of
audio band noise generated by the output source i.2j (#c
——. (rh + R, + r,)’
——— (27)
amplified audio band noise generated by the input sources + 21cTh,.0’ R,
—-
e~z,en,z and G2, and converted input noise with frequency where
components that can be mixed with the RF signal to
produce an audio output. This analysis neglects output hfeO= gmrbe.
noise from all conversion frequencies except those in the
In micropower applications utilizing relatively low
band B = w, & w. = 2w..
Fig. 17 includes two transconductances: g~ = qIC/lcT signal frequencies R, >> rb so that (27) may be approxi-
used to determine the output noise from audio band input mated by (14).
sources and the conversion transconductance g,tl =
ACkNOWLEDGMENT
g~(m/@) qv,/~ T used to determine output noise from
conversion band noise sources. The authors would like to thank K. H. Fischer for his

Analysis of the circuit in Fig. 1.7gives comments and their colleagues at the Integrated Circuits

+ qIc 1 —
—.— (25)
2M’R. —— gmzrb,z 2gm12rbe2 —-
——3 + ‘——
! (r,, + R, + r,)’ + aa2rba2C2(Rs
+ @ (~b, + R. + r,)2 + U,2?,,2C’(R, + rb)z1“

In most micropower applications co, >> u. and Laboratory, Stanford University, and at the Integrated
Electronics Technical Area, U. S. Army Electronics Tech-
nology and Devices Laboratory (ECOM), for their as-
sistance in the fabrication of the command receivers.
so that the second term in the denominator of the last.
term in (25) can be neglected. This gives REFERENCES

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High-Performance Low-Power CMOS Memories Using

Silicon-on-Sapphire Technology
EDWARD J. BOLEKY, MENIBER,IEEE, AND ,JOHN E. MEYER, IL4EJIBER,IEEE

Abstract—Complementary MOS/silicon.on-sapphire (SOS) in- parasitic capacitance. High-speed performance, compar-

verters fabricated using silicon-gate technology and 5-Mmchannel- able to bipolar digital circuits at comparable supply vol-
length devices have achieved nanosecond propagation delays and tages with less than one percent of the bipolar power
picojoule dynamic power-z delay products. In addition to high
switching speed and low dynamic power, inverters with low leakage dissipation, can be obtained from the MOS transistor
currents and therefore low quiescent power have been obtained. only by the utilization of a technology that combines the
Two complex CMOS/SOS memories that realize the performance best features of thin-film and monolithic silicon tech-
attributes of the individual inverters have been fabricated. An nologies in the environment of large-scale integration.
aluminum-gate 256-bit fully decoded static random-access memory The silicon-on-sapphire (SOS) approach comes closest
features a typical access time of 50 ns at 10 V with a power dissipa-
tion of 0.4 pW/bit (quiescent) and 10 pW/bit (dynamic). The access to realizing these desirable features as MOS/SOS
time at 5 V is typically 95 ns. A silicon-gate 256-bit dynamic shift transistors with effective nobilities [2] comparable to
register features operation at clock signals of 200 MHz at 10 V and those of bulk silicon MOS transistors can be fabricated
75 MHz at 5 V. The dynamic power dissipation at 50 MHz and 5 V in a thin single-crystal silicon film grown on an electri-
is typically 90 pW/bit, cally insulating sapphire substrate [3]. The use of the
INTRODUCTION thin-film silicon allows virtual elimination of the para-
sitic capacitance that seriously degrades the performance
HE advantages of the MO(S transistor as a basic

T element in large-scale digital arrays have been ex-

tensively described. The most important of these
are processing simplicity, high packing density, and low
of bulk silicon MOIS circuits. Fullest advantage
low capacitance is realized in complementary
(CMOIS) circuit configurations
of the
symmetry
that produce the highest
speed with minimum power and circuit complexity [4] –
power dissipation, all of which enable fabrication of
[7].
complex arrays with high yields and low cost. It can be
The key electrical parameters that determine CMOS/
shown that on the basis of transit-time considerations,
SOS circuit performance are the switching speed and the
the MOS device is capable of high-frequency perform-
leakage current of the CMOS/SOS inverters. These pa-
ance comparable to that of the bipoIar transistor [1]. rameters have been investigated in detail; the results are
To date, however, MOS arrays have been characterized presented and discussed below. After the characteristics
by relatively slow operating speeds because of harmful of the individual CMOS/SOS inverters have been es-
tablished, the design and performance of a 256-bit fully
Manuscript received June 30, 1971; revised December 1, 1971. decoded CMOS/SOS static random-access memory and
This research was sponsored by the Air Force Avionics Labora- a 256-bit CMOIS/SOS silicon-gate dynamic shift reg-
tory, Wright-Patterson AFB, Dayton, Ohio, under Contract
. F33615-69-C-1499, and by NASA, George C. Marshall Flight ister are described.
Center, Ala., under Contract NASIZ-2207, and by RCA Labora- Before proceeding to the detailed technical discussion,
tories.
E. J. Boleky is with the Department of Electrical Engineering, it is appropriate to describe briefly the basic concepts
Stanford University,, Stanford, Calif., 94305. and advantages of MOS,/SOS technology, especially in
J. E. &lever is with the RCA Laboratories. Princeton, N. J.
08540. ‘ comparison with bulk silicon MOS technology.