ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTATION ET8017 DELFT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

Homework 1b, 1c
Abstracttemperature sensors suffer from different sources of inaccuracy. For this assignments, we will consider that the accuracy of a bandgap based temperature sensor will be limited by the gain error of the amplifier (1b) and noise sources (1c). The objective is to determine the gain error that creates a 0.1C error in the readout (1b) and an expression for the resolution of the sensor in terms of the transistors bias currents (1c).

the amplifiers offset. Assuming p=5, r=1 and = 16, it is necessary to determine which offset corresponds to an error of 0.1C. The solution approach is presented in the next section.

I. INTRODUCTION

principle and temperature voltage dependence of bipolar transistors can be used for relatively simple and accurate temperature measurements. Figure 1 presents the schematic of a practical sensor. It is composed of bipolar transistors, an error amplifier and an ADC converter. The principle of operation is based on the characteristics of the base-emitter voltages of the bipolar transistors to create two signals; one PTAT1, which is an amplified version of VBE; and one temperature independent (VREF), roughly 1.2V, taking VBE (which has a CTAT2 behavior) and the amplified version of VBE. Additionally, p denotes the current ratio between the current branches and r represents the ratio of the area of the emitters.
ANDGAP

Fig. 2: Principle of operation of the temperature sensor. [1].

II. SOLUTION 1B From eq. (1), it is possible to determine the sensitivity of the readout with respect to variations of the parameter as the derivative / . The result is expressed in eq. (2).

Hence,

Fig. 1: Schematic of a practical bandgap temperature sensor.

Figure 2 shows the signals variations with temperature. It can be noted that at 330C, the base-emitter voltage of the bipolar transistors reaches zero. At this point, the weighed version of VBE should equal VREF. Moreover, a digital output is defined as follows: (1) Where is the gain of the amplifier. The problem given states that, in this case, the accuracy of the sensor will be limited by

Where = VREF. From eq. (3), it is clear the temperature dependence of in the denominator. Here, one can notice that the product in the denominator contains both a PTAT and a CTAT element, which suggests an asymptotic behavior of on the lowest and highest temperatures. At absolute zero, VBE = 0, making tend to infinity while at 330C VBE = 0, once again, sending to infinity. Therefore, to find the worst case scenario (i.e. the minimum value of ), graphical means are used. The behavior of the signals V BE and VBE can be extracted from figure 2, then, the behavior of can be plotted using eq. (3). Figure 3 shows as a function of temperature.

1 2

Proportional-To-Absolute-Temperature Complementary-To-Absolute-Temperature

ELECTRONIC INSTRUMENTATION ET8017 DELFT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY REFERENCES

[1]

[2] [3]

A 1.2-V 10-W NPN-Based Temperature Sensor in 65-nm CMOS With an Inaccuracy of 0.2C (3 sigma) From 70C to 125C. Sebastiano, Fabio et al. IEEE Journal of Solid States Circuits, Vol. 45, No. 12, December 2010. Opamp Input Offset Voltage. Analog Devices MT-037 tutorial. 2009 Nulling Input Offset Voltage of Operational Amplifiers. Application Report, SLOA045. Texas Instruments. August 2000.

Fig. 3: as a function of temperature.

In figure 3 we see that there an extended range of temperatures where small values of take place. Figure 4 shows a zoomed in plot of as a function of temperature. The worst case scenario has been determined as =9.56*10 -3 at 28.5C.

Fig. 4: Zoomed in plot of as a function of temperature.

With this information, it is possible to calculate the percentage of error in that would cause a 0.1C error in the temperature readout.

III. CONCLUSIONS From this assignment, it was possible to gain more insight in how bandgap temperature sensors work. By researching in the literature, the understanding of this circuit, specifically the making of the PTAT and CTAT voltages and the digital output were enhanced. Moreover, an expression for the amplifiers offset as a source of error in bandgap temperature sensors was extracted, leading to an interpretation of how this characteristic affects the circuit along the temperature range of interest.