Designing Analog Functions Without Analog Circuits

The continuous progress of CMOS semiconductor technology fuels the technological revolution towards a smart world that immersively impacts our daily life, work and play. The Internet of Things, personalized healthcare monitoring, autonomous driving, industry 4.0, etc. are but a few examples. Sensors and sensor interfaces with intelligence in the edge play a key role in all of these. This presentation will focus on core challenges in the design of future electronic circuits for such applications, where cost, power and reliability are major issues besides raw performance. The key to achieve solutions with small area (cost) and low power is to design the analog functions in a highly digital manner. This will be illustrated with some practical design examples.