Design of an On-chip Thermal Sensor using Leakage Current of a Transistor

Abstract

Our efforts are to design a self-contained, supply-insensitive, completely on-chip thermal sensor based on exponential temperature dependency of leakage current of a PMOS transistor in sub 90-nm technologies. Simulation results show an error of 3.9ºC for a temperature range of 25ºC to 110ºC with +/-10% supply variation. The circuit was fabricated in 65 nm CMOS technology with a nominal supply voltage of 1.2V. Area of the sensor is 0.0026 mm2 and power consumption 351.55 μW at 25ºC. The circuit uses no temperature insensitive on-chip or external references.