Low frequency sinusoidal oscillator for impedance spectroscopy

Impedance measurement as a function of frequency is being increasingly used for the detection of organic molecules. The main building block required for this is a sinusoidal oscillator whose frequency can be varied in the range of a few KHz to tens of MHz. The thesis describes the design of Integrated CMOS Oscillator Circuits. There are 2 designs presented in the thesis, one of which is based on the Wien Bridge and the other, on an LC architecture. They provide both in-phase and quadrature outputs needed for the determination of the real and imaginary parts of complex impedances. The inductor in the LC tank is realized by gyration of a capacitor. This needs two variable transconductance elements. Linear transconductance elements with decoupled transconductance gm and output conductance go is presented. A novel circuit for detecting and controlling the amplitude of oscillation is described. A current mode technique to scale the capacitance is also discussed. Since this oscillator is used in an inexpensive hand-held instrument, both power consumption and chip area must be minimized. A comparison between the Wien Bridge and the LC tank based oscillator is presented. Simulation results pertaining to the design of the different blocks of the circuit are made available.