A pW-Power Hz-Range Oscillator Operating With a 0.3–1.8-V

Abstract

In this paper, a pW-power relaxation oscillator for sensor node applications is presented. The proposed oscillator operates over a wide supply voltage range from nominal down to deep sub-threshold and requires only a sub-pF capacitor for Hz-range output frequency. A true pW-power operation is enabled thanks to the adoption of an architecture leveraging transistor operation in super-cutoff, the elimination of voltage regulation, and current reference. Indeed, the oscillator can be powered directly from highly variable voltage sources (e.g., har- vesters and batteries over their whole charge/discharge cycle). This is achieved thanks to the wide supply voltage range, the low voltage sensitivity of the output frequency and the current drawn from the supply. A test chip of the proposed oscillator in 180 nm exhibits a nominal frequency of approximately 4 Hz, a supply voltage range from 1.8 V down to 0.3 V with 10%/V supply sensitivity, 8–18-pA current absorption, and 4%/°C thermal drift from −20 °C to 40 °C at an area of 1600 µm 2. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the proposed oscillator is the only one able to operate from sub-threshold to nominal voltage.