A novel programmable pulse-broadening time amplifier controlled by node capacitance

A novel programmable pulse-broadening time amplifier (TA) is proposed, which realizes the time-difference amplification of the rising edge, falling edge and pulse width of the output clock signal simultaneously. However, the recently reported TAs only realize either the time-difference amplification of the signal edge or the signal pulse width. According to the constant-slope principle, the transient amplified state and the steady amplified state exist in the circuit states. As a result, the proposed TA realizes a fixed time-gain amplification. With the variable-slope principle, their time gains are linear-programmable by controlling a 6-bit binary complementary capacitance-switching matrix simply. Besides, the input pulse-width range is flexible-adjustable by changing the period of input clock signal. Under the 0.13um process, the pulse-width range varies between (−100ps, +100ps) at the center of the 50% duty cycle of the input. The ranges of the time gains of the output rising edge, output falling edge and the output pulse are [0.782 12.53], [1.8 13.9], [2.59 26.4]. The variable ranges of the relative time gain errors of them are [0.16% 3.47%], [0.42% 0.91%], [0.36% 1.89%]. Compared with the latest TA, its peak-to-peak time gain error of the falling edge improves much by about 14 times.