LC Oscillator Driver for Safety Critical Applications

TL;DR

This paper presents a CMOS harmonic LC oscillator driver designed for automotive safety-critical applications, featuring digital amplitude regulation, robustness, low EMC emissions, and compatibility with variable external LC networks.

Contribution

It introduces a novel CMOS oscillator driver with digitally controlled amplitude regulation and high robustness for harsh automotive environments.

Findings

Supports wide external LC parameter variations

Achieves low current consumption

Ensures low EMC emissions

Abstract

A CMOS harmonic signal LC oscillator driver for automotive applications working in a harsh environment with high safety critical requirements is described. The driver can be used with a wide range of external components parameters (LC resonance network of a sensor). Quality factor of the external LC network can vary two decades. Amplitude regulation of the driver is digitally controlled and the DAC is constructed as exponential with piece-wise-linear (PWL) approximation. Low current consumption for high quality resonance networks is achieved. Realized oscillator is robust, used in safety critical application and has low EMC emissions.