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Mixed-signal integrated circuit
 
 
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A mixed-signal integrated circuit
Integrated circuit

In electronics, an integrated circuit is a miniaturized electronic circuit that has been manufactured in the surface of a thin Wafer of semiconductor material....
 is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuit
Digital circuit

Digital electronics are electronics systems that use digital signals. Digital electronics are representations of Boolean algebra and are used in computers, mobile phones, and other consumer products....
s on a single semiconductor die.

Examples
Typically, mixed-signal chips perform some whole function or sub-function in a larger assembly such as the radio subsystem of a cell phone, or the read data path and laser sled control logic
Control logic

Control logic is the part of a software architecture that controls what the program will do. This part of the program is also called the controller....
 of a DVD
DVD

DVD, also known as "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc,"is a popular optical disc data storage device media format. Its main uses are video and data storage....
 player. They often contain an entire system-on-a-chip
System-on-a-chip

System-on-a-chip or system on chip refers to integrating all components of a computer or other Electronics system into a single integrated circuit ....
.

Examples of mixed-signal integrated circuits include data converters using delta-sigma modulation
Delta-sigma modulation

The Delta-Sigma modulation is a method for encoding high resolution signals into lower resolution signals using pulse-density modulation. This technique has found increasing use in a range of modern electronic components, such as analog-to-digital converter and digital-to-analog converters, frequency synthesizers, Switched-mode power supply...
, analog-to-digital converter
Analog-to-digital converter

An analog-to-digital converter is a device which converts continuous signal to Discrete signal digital numbers. The reverse operation is performed by a digital-to-analog converter ....
/digital-to-analog converter
Digital-to-analog converter

In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device for converting a digital code to an analog signal .An analog-to-digital converter performs the reverse operation....
 using error detection and correction
Error detection and correction

In mathematics, computer science, telecommunication, and information theory, error detection and correction has great practical importance in maintaining data integrity across noisy channels and less-than-reliable storage media....
, and digital radio
Digital radio

Digital radio describes radio technologies which carry information as a digital signal, by means of a digital modulation method. The most common meaning is digital audio broadcasting technologies, but the topic may also cover TV broadcasting as well as many two-way digital wireless communication technologies....
 chips.






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Encyclopedia


A mixed-signal integrated circuit
Integrated circuit

In electronics, an integrated circuit is a miniaturized electronic circuit that has been manufactured in the surface of a thin Wafer of semiconductor material....
 is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuit
Digital circuit

Digital electronics are electronics systems that use digital signals. Digital electronics are representations of Boolean algebra and are used in computers, mobile phones, and other consumer products....
s on a single semiconductor die.

Examples


Typically, mixed-signal chips perform some whole function or sub-function in a larger assembly such as the radio subsystem of a cell phone, or the read data path and laser sled control logic
Control logic

Control logic is the part of a software architecture that controls what the program will do. This part of the program is also called the controller....
 of a DVD
DVD

DVD, also known as "Digital Versatile Disc" or "Digital Video Disc,"is a popular optical disc data storage device media format. Its main uses are video and data storage....
 player. They often contain an entire system-on-a-chip
System-on-a-chip

System-on-a-chip or system on chip refers to integrating all components of a computer or other Electronics system into a single integrated circuit ....
.

Examples of mixed-signal integrated circuits include data converters using delta-sigma modulation
Delta-sigma modulation

The Delta-Sigma modulation is a method for encoding high resolution signals into lower resolution signals using pulse-density modulation. This technique has found increasing use in a range of modern electronic components, such as analog-to-digital converter and digital-to-analog converters, frequency synthesizers, Switched-mode power supply...
, analog-to-digital converter
Analog-to-digital converter

An analog-to-digital converter is a device which converts continuous signal to Discrete signal digital numbers. The reverse operation is performed by a digital-to-analog converter ....
/digital-to-analog converter
Digital-to-analog converter

In electronics, a digital-to-analog converter is a device for converting a digital code to an analog signal .An analog-to-digital converter performs the reverse operation....
 using error detection and correction
Error detection and correction

In mathematics, computer science, telecommunication, and information theory, error detection and correction has great practical importance in maintaining data integrity across noisy channels and less-than-reliable storage media....
, and digital radio
Digital radio

Digital radio describes radio technologies which carry information as a digital signal, by means of a digital modulation method. The most common meaning is digital audio broadcasting technologies, but the topic may also cover TV broadcasting as well as many two-way digital wireless communication technologies....
 chips. Digitally controlled sound chip
Sound chip

A sound chip is an integrated circuit designed to produce sound . It might be doing this through digital, analog or mixed-mode integrated circuit electronics....
s are also mixed-signal circuits. With the advent of cellular technology and network technology this category now includes cellular telephone, software radio, LAN
Local area network

A local area network is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small group of buildings, such as a school, or an airport....
 and WAN
Wide area network

Wide Area Network is a computer network that covers a broad area . Contrast with personal area networks , local area networks , campus area networks , or metropolitan area networks which are usually limited to a room, building, campus or specific metropolitan area respectively....
 router
Router

A router is a Computer network device whose software and hardware are usually tailored to the tasks of routing and forwarding information. For example, on the Internet, information is directed to various paths by routers....
 integrated circuits.

Because of the use of both digital signal processing and analog circuitry, mixed-signal ICs are usually designed for a very specific purpose and their design requires a high level of expertise and careful use of computer aided design (CAD) tools. Automated testing of the finished chips can also be challenging. Teradyne
Teradyne

Teradyne , a United States company, is a supplier of automatic test equipment . As of 2005, it has the largest marketshare in the System-on-a-chip market....
 and Agilent are the major suppliers of the test equipment for mixed-signal chips.

The particular challenges of mixed signal include:

  • CMOS
    CMOS

    Complementary metal?oxide?semiconductor , is a major class of integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, Static Random Access Memory, and other digital logic circuits....
     technology is usually optimal for digital performance and scaling while bipolar transistors are usually optimal for analog performance, yet until the last decade it has been difficult to either combine these cost-effectively or to design both analog and digital in a single technology without serious performance compromises. The advent of technologies like high performance CMOS
    CMOS

    Complementary metal?oxide?semiconductor , is a major class of integrated circuits. CMOS technology is used in microprocessors, microcontrollers, Static Random Access Memory, and other digital logic circuits....
    , BiCMOS
    BiCMOS

    In integrated circuit technologies, BiCMOS, also called BiMOS, refers to the integration of bipolar junction transistors and CMOS technology into a single device....
    , CMOS SOI
    Silicon on insulator

    Silicon on insulator technology refers to the use of a layered silicon-insulator-silicon Substrate in place of conventional silicon substrates in semiconductor manufacturing, especially microelectronics, to reduce parasitic device capacitance and thereby improve....
     and SiGe
    SiGe

    SiGe , or silicon-germanium, is a general term for the alloy Si1-xGex which consists of any molar ratio of silicon and germanium....
     have removed many of the compromises that previously had to be made.


  • Testing functional operation of mixed-signal ICs remains complex, expensive and often a "one-off" implementation task


  • Systematic design methodologies comparable to digital design methods are far more primitive in the analog and mixed-signal arena. Analog circuit design can not generally be automated to nearly the extent that digital circuit design can. Combining the two technologies multiplies this complication.


  • Fast-changing digital signals send noise to sensitive analog inputs. One path for this noise is substrate coupling
    Substrate coupling

    In an integrated circuit, a signal can couple from one node to another via the substrate. This phenomenon is referred to as substrate coupling or substrate noise coupling....
    . A variety of techniques are used to attempt to block or cancel this noise coupling, such as fully differential amplifier
    Fully differential amplifier

    A fully differential amplifier, usually referred to as an 'FDA' for brevity, is a direct current-Direct coupling high-gain electronic voltage electronic amplifier with differential inputs and differential outputs....
    s, P+ guard-rings , differential topology, on-chip decoupling, and triple-well isolation.


Commercial examples

  • PSoC
    PSoC

    PSoC is a family of Mixed-signal integrated circuit arrays made by Cypress Semiconductor, featuring a microcontroller and configurable integrated analog and digital peripherals....
     - Cypress PSoC Programmable System on Chip
  • Atari POKEY
    Atari POKEY

    POKEY is a digital input/output chip found in the Atari 8-bit family of home computers and many arcade games in the 1980s. Its name comes from POtentiometer and KEYboard, as it was commonly used to sample potentiometers and scan matrices of switches ....
  • Integrated Device Technology
    Integrated Device Technology

    IDT was founded in 1980 as a semiconductor vendor. Employing approximately 2500 people worldwide, headquartered in San Jose, California, and operating a Fab in Hillsboro, Oregon, the company both designs and fabricates semiconductor components....
  • MOS Technology SID
    MOS Technology SID

    The MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID was the built-in Programmable Sound Generator chip of Commodore International's Commodore CBM-II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and Commodore MAX Machine home computers....


Further reading

http://CMOSedu.com/