On the design of analog, mixed-signal and power management circuits for system-on-chip applications

Over the past decades, the complexity of Analog, Mixed-Signal, and System-on-Chip ICs has increased at a prodigious rate. Power management circuits are becoming ubiquitous and challenging, with the proliferation of system-on-chip integration and functionality. The objective of this dissertation is the development of analog and power management circuits as an essential part of mixed-signal systems-on chip in the next generation deep-sub-micron CMOS technologies. The dissertation can be divided into two parts: design and development of (a) a tunable Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO), and (b) a wide-range output capacitor Low Dropout Voltage Regulator (LDO).;The first part describes the design of a compact CMOS Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO) that generates triangle and square waveforms with accurate amplitude and pulse width control over a very wide range of frequencies from fractions of Hz to 30 MHz in a 0.5mum CMOS process.;The second part describes the design of a 1.21V output, 100mA, 0.1muF-10muF output capacitor, ESR-independent, low voltage, low dropout voltage regulator (LDO) for portable power applications. The LDO is designed and fabricated in a 0.5mum CMOS process with an area of 0.22 mm². The use of a wide-range output capacitor LDO enables reduced target system PCB size and Bill of Materials (BOM). A 0.05%/V line regulation, 0.001%/mA load regulation with 220mV dropout is measured. LDO-specific pole-zero and stability analyses are detailed.