The goal of this paper is twofold: first to add together all different causes that can alter the offset of a differential temperature sensor and, second, to present a new differential temperature sensor architecture that can digitally compensate for this behavior and therefore extends the sensor dynamic range. Measurements performed on a 65 nm CMOS differential temperature sensor are presented to illustrate the discussion. As evolution of the state of the art, an automatic calibration procedure and the new sensor topology is presented. With this new topology, not only the thermal offset can be digitally calibrated, but the application field of differential temperature sensors is widened, being now suitable for use in measurements where both wide input range and high differential sensitivity are required.

Peer Reviewed