CMOS Capacitance-to-Time Converter-Based Interface for Differential Capacitive Sensors

This paper presents pre-layout simulation results on a CMOS implementation of a capacitance-to-time converter-based electronic interface for differential capacitive sensors. Its simple architecture, comprising only three operational amplifiers (OA) and a digital mixer (inverted XOR gate) allows, by properly setting the values of seven biasing resistors, to fit the working range anywhere from few fF to hundreds of pF, giving the output quasi-digital signals (T and PW) in the useful μs-ms range (appropriate for direct interfacing with general purposes microcontrollers). A couple of illustrative examples are provided.