A CMUT Transceiver Front-End with 100-V

TX Driver and 1-mW Low-Noise Capacitive

Feedback RX Amplifier in BCD-SOI
Technology
M.Sautto, D.Leone, A.Savoia1, D.Ghisu2,
F.Quaglia2, G.Caliano1 and A. Mazzanti

Università di Pavia - Italy,

1Università degli Studi Roma Tre, Rome - Italy,
2STMicroelectronics, Milan – Italy,

1
 Outline
 Mobile Ultrasound Imaging Platform Challenges
 Proposed architecture
 RX-Amplifier
 TX-Driver
 T/R Switch

 Experimental results
 Conclusions and acknowledgments

2
 Mobile Ultrasound Imaging Platform

MobiUS™ SP1, Mobisante, Inc. Signos®, Signostics Ltd.

Vscan™, GE Healthcare

Developing countries Guided

Emergency care
primary medical care microsurgery

 Power and size constraints limit the number of transducers and

image quality
3
 Challenges

INTEGRATION OF THOUSANDS OF TRANSDUCERS TO INCREASE

SYSTEM RESOLUTION
 Integrate the entire system in the US probe
 Coexistence of low-voltage high-sensitivity electronics with high-voltage
devices
 Keep the power consumption low to meet heating requirements
4
 Outline
 Mobile Ultrasound Imaging Platform Challenges
 Proposed architecture
 RX-Amplifier
 TX-Driver
 T/R Switch

 Experimental results
 Conclusions and acknowledgments

5
Capacitive Micromachined US Transducer
Compared to PZT:
 Higher integration density
 Wider bandwidth
 Wider operating temperature
Worst transmit efficiency
Necessity of high DC bias

Simplified RX electrical model

Top
Electrode C0
Bottom
Electrode
kPin
Silicon Nitride Oxide Vacuum
6
Proposed Architecture

CMUT
Back-biased
with 270 Vdc
through an
R-C network
7
 Proposed Architecture

TX Driver CMUT
Drives the Back-biased
CMUT with with 270 Vdc
100-V through an
unipolar R-C network
pulses
8
 Proposed Architecture

TX Driver CMUT T/R Switch

Drives the Back-biased Protects the
CMUT with with 270 Vdc LNA during
100-V through an TX and pre-
unipolar R-C network bias Node-B
pulses in RX
9
 Proposed Architecture

TX Driver CMUT T/R Switch RX Amplifier

Drives the Back-biased Protects the Composed of
CMUT with with 270 Vdc LNA during a gm and a
100-V through an TX and pre- feedback
unipolar R-C network bias Node-B network
pulses in RX
10
Receiving Architectures
Voltage amplifier
IEEE
TUFFC2005
Gain sensitive to parasitic
capacitance

IEEE
TUFFC2008 Resistive feedback amplifier
TUFFC2009
TUFFC2011 Widely used
JSSC2013

Capacitive feedback amplifier

Investigated in this paper

11
 Low Noise Feedback Amplifiers

Zf

C0
Vout 1
gm ≈ −k𝑠C0 Zf
Vout 𝑃𝑖𝑖 C0 + Cp
1+ s
kPin Cp gm

 Cp does not impair the system gain

 Cp impairs the system bandwidth

 gm has to be chosen high enough to maintain sufficient bandwidth

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 Calculated Noise
2
Cf Rf Nres 2
Nres = 4kTR f df

2
4γkT C0 + Cp + Cf
Zf 𝑵𝟐𝒐𝒐𝒐 = df
gm Cf2
C0
gm 4γkT 2
2 𝑵𝟐𝒐𝒐𝒐 = 4π2 C0 + Cp R2f f 2 + 1 df
2
Nin Nout gm
Cp
2 4𝛾kT +4kTR f df
Nin = df
gm

 Capacitive feedback amplifier has a constant in-band PSD

 Resistive feedback amplifier has an in-band zero in the PSD
and an additional contribution coming from the noisy resistor
 Cp impairs noise performance in both cases, it is mandatory to
minimize parasitic capacitances by design 13
 Simulated Noise
150 2
Nres Rf
Output Noise (μV)
120

90

60
Cf
30

0
0 5 10 15 20
gm (mS)

 Fair comparison imposing the same gain at center frequency

1
𝑅𝑓 =
2𝜋𝑓0 𝐶𝑓
 Noise performance improves increasing gm
 Noise in resistive feedback amplifier has a lower bound due to Nres
 Advantage expected to improve further with technology evolution
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 RX Amplifier Schematic
Vdd

M2

M3

Rb OUT
Cf

Iref
IN M1

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 RX Amplifier Schematic
Vdd Active load
180 µm
M2 1.5 µm

M3

Rb OUT
Cf

Iref
IN M1
Input transistor (gm)
130 µm
0.25 µm

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 RX Amplifier Schematic
Vdd Active load
180 µm
M2 1.5 µm

M3

Rb OUT
Cf
Feedback capacitor
Iref 1 pF
IN M1
Input transistor (gm)
130 µm
0.25 µm

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 RX Amplifier Schematic
Vdd Active load
180 µm
M2 1.5 µm

M3 Input-node bias
network
Rb R b = 300 kΩ
Cf OUT
Feedback capacitor
Iref 1 pF
IN M1
Input transistor (gm)
130 µm
0.25 µm

 R b biases the input node, its value has to be chosen high enough

 M3 sets the output DC bias voltage to Vdd /2 increasing the dynamic

range
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 TX Driver
M2
Cj2
D1

M3 M1 D2
Cj1

 DMOS M1 and M2 provide unipolar pulses up to 100 V to the top plate

of the CMUT

 DMOS M3 is used as an high voltage level shifter

 D1 and D2 are used to shield the LNA from the big parasitic
capacitances Cj1 and Cj2 (~5 pF)
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T/R Switch
D3 D4
Cgd4 Cgs4 M6
M4

M5 M7

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 T/R Switch OFF
D3 D4
Cgd4 Cgs4 M6
M4

M5 M7

 DMOS M4 withstands the high voltage TX pulses while M5 grounds

node B to ensure drain-bulk diode of M4 to be reverse biased

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 T/R Switch PRE-BIAS
D3 D4
Cgd4 Cgs4 M6
M4

M5 M7

 DMOS M4 withstands the high voltage TX pulses while M5 grounds

node B to ensure drain-bulk diode of M4 to be reverse biased
 M7 speeds up the TX-to-RX switch time by pre-charging the top plate
of the CMUT

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 T/R Switch ON
D3 D4
Cgd4 Cgs4 M6
M4

M5 M7

 DMOS M4 withstands the high voltage TX pulses while M5 grounds

node B to ensure drain-bulk diode of M4 to be reverse biased
 M7 speeds up the TX-to-RX switch time by pre-charging the top plate
of the CMUT
 D3 and D4 are used to shield the LNA from the parasitic capacitances
Cgd4 and Cgs4
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 Outline
 Mobile Ultrasound Imaging Platform Challenges
 Proposed architecture
 RX-Amplifier
 TX-Driver
 T/R Switch

 Experimental results
 Conclusions and acknowledgments

24
Chip Photograph

 BCD-SOI (STMicroelectronics)

 Total Area = 0.27 mm2

 Total Area (w/o buff) = 0.18 mm2

 Typical 1D-array element area: 0.5 – 2 mm2

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 Measurement Setup
ELECTRICAL PULSE-ECHO
CHARACTERIZATION CHARACTERIZATION
Agilent Tektronix
ESG D4000A TDS5104

C0

 Test chip wire-bonded to a PCB

 Pulse-echo characterization
 Electrical characterization emulating with a 5-15 MHz CMUT
the CMUT with a 10 pF capacitor probe-head
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 Electrical Characterization
Pulses shape LNA transfer function

 Electrical characterization of the circuit emulating the CMUT with a 10 pF

capacitor

 100 V approximately symmetric pulses, no excessive ringing at 10 MHz

 LNA first pole at 500kHz, second pole at 40MHz. Enough for the CMUT

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 Pulse-echo Characterization
Pulse-echo Bandwidth Received echoes

 Two-way measurement shows 11-MHz bandwidth centered at 10MHz

 Pulse-echo performed biasing the CMUT at different voltages, from 150

to 270 V

 Maximum receive sensitivity 72 mV/kPa

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 Summary of the Performance
IEEE JSSC IEEE TUFFC IEEE TUFFC IEEE TUFFC
This Work
2013 2011 2009 2008
Technology Node [µm] 0.18 0.18 0.35 1.5 1.5
Center Frequency [MHz] 10 3 15 2.2 5.1
Bandwidth [MHz] 11 5.2 10 5 6.4
Pulse Amplitude [V] 100 30 n/a 25 25
RX Power Cons. [mW] 1 14.3 6.6 2.4 4
RX Sensitivity [mV/kPa] 72 162 130 414 70
Input Noise [mPa/√Hz] 0.55 0.56 3 0.9 1.8
Dynamic Range [dB] 70 60 42 n/a n/a
Noise FoM
0.55 2.1 7.7 1.4 3.6
[mPa√(mW/Hz)]
 Highest pulse amplitude leading to PZT-competitive pressure radiation
 Highest dynamic range thanks to noise reduction and compression point
improvement techniques
 Noise FoM defined in IEEE JSSC2013, more than 2X better than State
of Art 29
 Outline
 Mobile Ultrasound Imaging Platform Challenges
 Proposed architecture
 RX-Amplifier
 TX-Driver
 T/R Switch

 Experimental results
 Conclusions and acknowledgments

30
 Conclusions

 This work proposes a CMUT transceiver front-end able to

deliver up to 100-V pulses while featuring an ultra-low
power RX amplifier

 By exploiting a capacitive feedback amplifier topology

and through a design aware of the large parasitic
capacitances introduced by the high voltage transistors,
record dynamic range and Noise FoM are achieved

 System functionality has been experimentally

demonstrated with electrical and pulse-echo
measurements

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 Acknowledgments

This work is partially funded by the National

governments and the European Union through
the ENIAC JU project DeNeCoR under grant
agreement number 324257.

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